


as you like me

by desperheaux



Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band)
Genre: A Touch of Angst in the Form of Pining and Insecurity, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/F, Fluff, Humor, alt title: all the world's a stage & jiyoo should def be worried about the 5 who are running it, feat. dramateacher!ryusera useless!gays and toomany!unnecessarycameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28886325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperheaux/pseuds/desperheaux
Summary: Bora rolls her eyes. “A little homoeroticism never hurt anyone.”“Me, it hurts me!” Yoohyeon cries. “How am I supposed to stage kiss Minji?!”“With your lips,” Handong suggests at the same time Siyeon reads from the script, “'tastefully, but brimming with barely restrained passion.'”(Yoohyeon has a crush. The drama club is, well... dramatic.)
Relationships: Handong is a Gahyeon stan, Kim Bora | SuA/Lee Siyeon, Kim Minji | JiU/Kim Yoohyeon
Comments: 241
Kudos: 446





	1. Act One

**Author's Note:**

> I have two other works I so desperately want to update, but this idea seized my brain and now refuses to let it go until I get this out :ccc I'm determined to mark this complete before Odd Eye inevitably inspires another wacky story idea, so:
> 
> Content Warning for one mention of blood (yoohyeon is clumsy), implied violence (bora is bora), american high school references (the author is sorry), and the occasional poor transitional playwriting script format (the author is sorry x2)
> 
> We have front of house clearance!

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

_The castle throne room. The room is dark and silent. The main spotlight is switched on. YOOHYEON stands upstage in a tattered black dress, sword in hand, head bowed. NARRATOR 1 enters cloaked from stage right. YOOHYEON slowly begins to walk backwards, head lifting slightly with each step, as NARRATOR 1 speaks._

NARRATOR 1: The most tragic of stories are ones of betrayal.

_NARRATOR 2 enters cloaked from stage left._

NARRATOR 2: The most beautiful of stories are ones of love.

NARRATOR 1: In the kingdom of Polaris, a queen pays the highest price for her rightful place upon the throne.

NARRATOR 2: In a collapsing world, a woman surrenders her heart twice over.

_YOOHYEON reaches the throne and sits, chin held high._

NARRATOR 1: Some will call it tragic. Some will call it beautiful.

NARRATOR 2: This is a story of memory and perception, of truth and lies.

NARRATOR 1: This is a story of betrayal, and of love.

NARRATOR 1 & 2: This… is Deja Vu.

_Main lights go up, revealing the body of JIU at the foot of the throne. Dressed in white and glittering in gold dust, she looks like a fallen angel. Blue flowers rain down on stage as YOOHYEON sits proudly on the throne, right hand resting atop the hilt of her sword._

DAMI: This… is unrealistic.

HANDONG: I agree. Minji might be an angel, but there is no way I am using glitter on costumes again, not after last year.

DAMI: I was thinking more that there’s no way Yoohyeon could suddenly become coordinated enough to step backwards over a body without tripping and falling.

HANDONG: Ah, that too. Knowing her, she’d end up in a compromising position with Minji. And then she’d roll over and die from embarrassment.

SUA: Hey, maybe that’s exactly what she needs! Siyeon, babe, you’re a genius!

SIYEON: Oh I know. But can we stick to the script—

Lights suddenly go up on the real setting, and surprised yelps sound out from the four girls currently gathered in a tight circle on their auditorium stage.

Siyeon, scriptwriter visionary with a dark punk aesthetic that belies her soft character, jumps so far back she almost tumbles into the orchestra pit. Bora, an actor equally known for her villain typecasting as she is for her dramatic homosensual improv, predictably saves Siyeon from impending doom with a warcry and a tackle that turns into a far-too-intimate embrace. Also predictably, this scene earns a disgusted _tsk_ from their only costume designer and best chameleon actor Handong; head techie Yubin simply does what she always does when faced with the dramatics of the theatre kids, and ignores them in favor of the more important issue at hand.

That being: the infiltration of their top secret mission planning.

Only two students have keys to the auditorium. One is Yubin. The other is the school’s golden child, star of every play since freshman year, and one of two people who absolutely cannot find out about their grand plot.

If Minji’s angelic face appears from behind the curtain, they are doomed.

_Enter a shadowy figure, stage right._

There is a collective sigh of relief when they all recognize who it is: the enthusiastic timpani and triangle player who stands behind Siyeon in music class, the reserve goalie who happily warms the bench beside Bora when the hot-headed striker gets red-carded, the art classmate who managed to procure a truckload of glitter for Handong last year, and Yubin’s genius study buddy for an upcoming mathlete competition. And most importantly, not Minji.

Gahyeon, in theatre terms, is a whole Ironman cast packed into one very cute, very charismatic, and very ambitious underclassman. If Minji is famous, Gahyeon is the infamous counterpart; in only two years, she has dabbled and succeeded in nearly every extra-curricular club and team that exists. All interesting events that occur at their otherwise droll school can be traced back to her involvement. It is most predictable for her character, then, when she steps from around the heavy stage curtains and cheerfully exclaims:

“I want in!”

Siyeon, the mastermind of this illicit meeting, blinks up at her mischievous grin. The three others she has gathered here, plus herself, make up the backbone of the theatre club. Yoohyeon is excluded because she _has_ no backbone, and this is exactly the reason behind this last ditch effort to nudge their friend into the spotlight and, if all goes well, Minji’s arms.

The thing is, scenes never play out exactly as they are written in the script. The four have tried individually over the years to get their miserably lovesick puppy of a friend to act on her feelings, all to no avail, and now they are all in their fourth year and about to start working on their second-to-last production of high school. If this attempt fails, they will have such little time left amongst senior responsibilities that it will have all been basically for naught.

This is Yoohyeon’s last chance.

Bora picks up on Siyeon’s hesitance and decides to feign innocence.

“Want in? Ah ha ha, sure, we were just… playing…” she scans around for an idea, and is met with only the carefully blank faces of the others. “...Poker! But uh, no chips. Or cards. ‘Cause gambling is illegal. In this auditorium. Yubin here wanted to play Texas Hold ‘Em, and I said, ‘hold ‘em? I hardly _know_ ‘em,’ ha ha…”

She detaches herself from her girlfriend to slide the scripts out of Gahyeon’s confused line of sight, twisting her body in exaggerated stretches as a distraction. Handong sighs. Yubin tactfully averts her attention. For such an excellent actor, Bora is painfully bad at lying.

“How did you get in here?” Handong interjects with a much smoother distracting question.

Gahyeon spins a packed keyring around her finger. “I’m friends with the janitor. He’s a really chill guy. Made me a copy of the keys to all the places in school.”

Now Bora is the one to stare bemusedly at her. “How did you get him to do _that_?”

Gahyeon shrugs. “I asked?”

“Well hey, how ‘bout next time you ask Coach to quit benching me for no reason?”

“Funny, she asked me to ask you to stop suplexing people during games…”

“How much did you hear of our conversation, exactly, Gahyeon?” Yubin, whose main plan of action to help Yoohyeon’s crush over the years has always been to say ‘just tell her’, bluntly drags the important question under the spotlight. Siyeon winces. Bora casually sidles back into her lap, unnecessarily flirty as she wraps her arms around her girlfriend’s neck to jam the scripts into the waistband of her ripped skinny jeans.

“I was passing by and heard some noise? I know the auditorium isn't the haunted part of school, so I thought I’d check it out.” Gahyeon nonchalantly tucks her key ring into a flap on her bulky canvas backpack and plops down between Handong and Yubin. “I didn’t hear much of your conversation, but I know you’re matchmaking. So, I want in!”

“What makes you think we’re matchmaking?” Siyeon tries to play it cool, casually leaning back on her hands. The incriminating papers crinkle very audibly. She winces again.

“You were talking about Minji and Yoohyeon.” Gahyeon blinks, as if she hadn’t even considered an alternative context. “This had _better_ be a meeting to plot their epic high school romance, because the other day in AP Lit I looked over to copy Yoohyeon’s paper, but the only thing on it was a poem. Perfect iambic pentameter parameters, passable Shakespearean language… all about how _kind_ Minji is. I mean, _‘Shall I compare thee to the sun herself / Whilst I peer up shadowed beneath my shelf’_... She _can’t_ keep living like this! It’s so painful! Especially to my in-class assignment grade.”

The rest of the circle exchanges a collective look of fed-up sympathy. Out of all of the monologues the stage has seen, this one has to be one of the most convincing.

Siyeon waits for a nod from each of them before bringing their script back into view. This is a team effort now, after all.

“Fine, you’re in.”

Handong scoots over so the circle fits five. Gahyeon cheers, and Bora reflexively whoops in response.

“Let’s get these suckers together!”

Yubin rubs her hands together in anticipation. “Ah, yes. Back to meddling in strangers’ personal romantic affairs.”

Bora gives her a weird look. “Yoohyeon isn't a stranger?”

“She will be to me, if she doesn’t confess by the end of this.”

“And people say the actors are the dramatic ones.”

Siyeon smooths out the crumpled scripts as best she can, already mentally adding notes for the characters on paper and the actors who will be playing their very innocent roles in front of Yoohyeon and Minji. Everyone leans in, ready for the plot of a lifetime.

“Alright, here’s the plan…”

//

ACT ONE

SCENE 2

_The auditorium stage. The main lights are up. ENSEMBLE lazes around the stage and audience seats. The room is quiet and focused as script-review wraps up. Notably, YOOHYEON sits in the farthest seat on the edges of the front row, while MINJI swings her legs idly from her perch over the orchestra pit. They face each other, but haven’t once made eye contact. SIYEON, BORA, HANDONG, YUBIN, and GAHYEON take turns staring in their stead._

YOOHYEON: All the truths I believed covered me in falsehoods.

JIU: But oh, in the midst of the darkness, like a ray of light… you take my hand.

YOOHYEON: And I follow you.

JIU: Even if I bet all of me for you, and the painful wounds deepen…

YOOHYEON: As if every moment is a dream…

JIU: ...I won’t move away from you.

YOOHYEON: And now… I’m in my Deja Vu.

Anxiously, Siyeon looks up before the duo finish reading their lines to gauge the reactions to her script. She is pleased when the final stage directions are met with an impressed lull of nothing but ruffling pages; it takes a lot to silence the chaotic theatre club as a collective. She is less pleased when Minji looks up to beam at her dialogue partner for their obvious synergy, and Yoohyeon does nothing but hide her flushed face determinedly behind her copy of the script. Apparently, it will take a lot more to deal with those two.

The group breaks out in neutral snaps and murmurs, as Siyeon’s was the last script to be taken into consideration. It might just be projection, but Minji’s trademark bright smile appears to dim considerably when Yoohyeon successfully avoids eye contact. Then her expression is eclipsed from Siyeon’s position in the middle aisle seat as some of the theatre kids teasingly jump to hype her up on her perfect voice acting.

Authoritative claps bring the attention to the aisle seat opposite Siyeon. Sera, the theatre club overseer and at least three dozen students’ emotional support teacher of choice, stands with a proud thumbs up all around the room.

“Another excellent submission, thank you Siyeon. Now, we’ve read through all four potential scripts for this semester’s play. As this is the senior year for many of our incredibly talented actors and techies,” she pauses to let the younger club members nudge their graduating friends who groan like their bones are old and fragile, “we may lose some of our own to other areas of lesser, but still significant, academic importance. For some, this may very well be the last performance of your high school career. Keep that in mind as we proceed to the vote.”

It’s a bit dramatic, as expected, but her speech draws a solemn cloud of contemplation over the scatter of students. Yoohyeon and Minji both sit with their heads cocked thoughtfully to the side, impossibly cute mirror images of each other. Except Minji’s eyes are absentmindedly on the floor, and Yoohyeon’s conflicted gaze is fixed on the script in her hands.

Bora, who has been burning excess energy by cartwheeling downstage throughout the past two hours of script read-throughs, groans exasperatedly and collapses onto the floor. Everyone else dismisses it as senior angst, but the other four secret conspirators nod to each other grimly.

This is their last chance, too.

“Before we begin, remember that no matter what gets chosen, you are all some of the brightest minds I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and that we as a found family all love and support each other’s present and future endeavors.” Sera meets every single student’s eyes with a fond smile before continuing cheerfully: “That being said! As per custom, any tiebreakers will be decided via prop sword duel, and should you have any other grievances to settle with each other, they will be dealt with outside of this auditorium and will not reach my underpaid hands. On to the vote!”

This is the crux of the plan. Sure, they might still be able to make do with the others, but the scriptwriter of the chosen play will have creative control as a main director. Siyeon has submitted other plays in the past years, but has usually relinquished the directing responsibilities to Sera or other more passionate students. Not this year. With Yoohyeon, they’ve decided, passive encouragement is no longer enough: friendly manipulation is now in order.

From an objective standpoint, Siyeon’s play is the most creative and emotionally interesting. The obligatory High School Musical re-work (junior actor Yeri’s insistent submission since her first semester) is more a running joke than a serious contender. But the other two scripts are formidable opponents. One is a sickeningly cliche but self-aware meet-cute story entitled Love Shake, which might garner some votes for its fourth-wall humor. And the other is a cyberpunk spin on yet another Shakespeare, which also might earn some votes because theatre kids have a weird fascination with modernized Shakespeare, and gay kids have a weird fascination with cyberpunk aesthetics.

There’s some intersection there that Siyeon is too nervous to unpack at the moment, as Sera holds up the first submission.

“All in favor of High School Musical: The Play, submitted by anonymous?”

There’s a whoop from the back. “What team?!”

“Wildcats!” A single voice responds.

Sera doesn’t turn around. “One combined vote from Yeri and Sooyoung. Alright, all in favor of Hamlet in the style of Tron?”

A smatter of hands, including Yoohyeon’s, shoot up. From the seat behind her, Handong leans in to mutter,

“In case you’re hoping I’ll dress Minji up in tight leather and give her an LED lightsword, you’re gravely mistaken.”

Flustered, Yoohyeon’s hand drops to swat at the costume designer, who sits back with crossed arms and a smug smirk. They both miss the way Minji looks up at the disturbance curiously.

“Seven, eight, nine… back to eight… okay. All in favor of Love Shake, submitted by pseudonym Minx?”

Sera counts out loud as Siyeon crosses her fingers.

“Nine… are those jazz hands or is that a vote, Dahyun?... ten votes for Love Shake. And finally, Deja Vu, submitted by Siyeon?”

Siyeon keeps her fingers crossed even as she raises her hand. Down the row, in the seat next to Handong, Yubin offhandedly mentions the presence of a large bug on Yoohyeon’s armrest. Yoohyeon’s arm shoots up in a panic.

On stage, Minji also raises her hand.

“Fifteen… sixteen. Or seventeen; I’m not sure what Yoohyeon’s doing. Either way, looks like we have our winner!”

The auditorium breaks out in applause and whistles of approval. Sera fixes Siyeon with her proud mom smile as Bora belts out an “ooh, go girlfriend that’s my girlfriend, you better eff it up!”, and the scriptwriter can’t help but let out a shy chuckle despite her stoic, punk veneer.

Her pleased embarrassment quickly melts away as she looks over to see the actors crowd around to discuss who will be trying out for what role. Minji is stuck in the epicenter, her magnetic aura too bright to ignore as she easily chats and laughs with all of them. Yoohyeon remains rooted in her corner with Handong and Yubin.

“Auditions will be held next Friday after school! Actors, please familiarize yourself with your lines of interest. Techies, the auditorium will be open for visualizing and arguing about the stage budget at lunch; for other operating hours, see Yubin. Once we vote on the cast, we’ll finalize the script and get to work on yet another epic production. Have a great rest of your day kids, and remember, no streetfights!” Sera dismisses the club with a playful shooing motion.

Yoohyeon slips out unseen in the crowd, losing even Handong and Yubin as classmates rush to corner them about costumes and stage effects. Minji stands and pauses center stage, scanning the heads of her exiting classmates for something, but gets distracted by a friend or two tugging her along to the wings.

Soon enough, only five remain in the auditorium, save for Yeri and Sooyoung in the back who are busy mourning their continued lack of success via dramatic song duet.

“Do you think this’ll actually work?” Bora worries. “Like, yeah, your writing is chef’s kiss babe, but it’s one thing to trick Yoohyeon into volunteering to read lines…”

Handong shakes her head. “I cannot believe she fell for that trick twice in thirty minutes.”

Yubin shrugs. “She has an incredible lack of control over her limbs, and a minor traumatic association with cockroaches from when we were kids.”

“Exploitative. I like it.”

“Simple maths, really.”

Siyeon decides to take each morally ambiguous instance of manipulation one scene at a time. She turns to Gahyeon, who somehow slunk into the drama-student-exclusive meeting and even chatted with half the class and the teacher without getting told off.

“They just let you in on top secret theatre club intellectual property? I’m a little scared of your power, kid.”

The youngest hikes up her absurdly large backpack with a modest nod. “I’m acquaintances with some of the actors and techies. I think I can convince them to vote for Yoohyeon, when we get to Phase Two of the plan!” She flashes a confident, gummy grin and a peace sign to match.

“By that, she means she’s genuine friends with literally everyone at this school because she’s adorable and chaotically wholesome and has a lot of love to give, and everyone knows it and would die for her,” Handong translates, matter-of-fact. Gahyeon squeaks, and in a flash, has managed to pull a Deadpool mask from her bag and shove it over her head to hide her bright red cheeks.

“I was wondering where that went,” Yubin mutters.

“Where’s that love when Coach benches me?” Bora grouches.

The five walk out bickering to Yeri and Sooyoung’s combined wailing — _“This could be the start of something new!”_ — and hope that today’s positive, only slightly manipulated outcome was a successful rehearsal for next week’s auditions.

//

ACT ONE

SCENE 3

_Exit stage right: MINJI, school sweetheart, has played the leading roles in school plays (Fly High, You & I, Rose Blue, some modernized Shakespeare productions of lesser importance) since freshman year, a stunning actor with the warmest personality off-stage._

_Exit stage left: YOOHYEON, idiot, joined the theatre club in freshman year alongside MINJI, passionate and committed but lacks the confidence to take anything except small roles. Or to confess to her crush of three years._

Enter: Yoohyeon’s fed-up friends.

They have a week to convince her to try out for one of the two lead roles in Deja Vu. But it’s clear (Siyeon’s obviously specific character descriptions aside) that Minji, the school’s unanimously-agreed-upon leading lady, will snag the role of Jiu. So even though Yoohyeon is just as beautiful and fantastic an actor and person in her own Yoohyeon way, insecurity has her folding her clumsy limbs in on herself as her friends nudge her out of her comfort zone and into the well-deserved spotlight.

At least, as they _try_ to. In their own drama and drama-adjacent ways.

They agree to meet after school in a different location each day to hold their secret debriefs. Perhaps the overly-complicated coded messages swapped in covert handshakes, and the full Men in Black outfit Gahyeon apparently keeps stashed in her bag for times like these, are a _bit_ much. But theatre nerd or not, who doesn’t love a good histrionic montage?

Monday:

The AP Calculus classroom. Yubin ignores their judgmental stares. “I tried my absolute best. I don’t believe I’ve ever been as heartfelt as I was in that moment.” She uncaps a whiteboard marker and nods.

Gahyeon uncaps her own bright pink marker and narrows her eyes.

Handong starts the timer. She says nothing as the two mathletes ignore Bora’s screeches in favor of the tangle of numbers and letters before them.

“Your absolute best?! You’re saying _that’s_ your absolute best?!”

Yubin only grunts and scribbles a third line of calculations.

“You told Yoohyeon, ‘Audition for the lead role. I’ll make sure my effects cover up your mistakes on show days.’ And you think that’s encouraging?!”

“Isn't it? She’s worried about making a fool of herself in front of Minji, and the rest of the school. It’s inevitable that she’ll make mistakes. Everyone does. I offered her the best of my technical services, so she’ll have less to worry about.” Yubin hesitates over a bunch of messy exponents.

“Time! I win!” Gahyeon yells. She flounces over to Handong, who laps the timer and ruffles Gahyeon’s hair. Gahyeon beams, proud.

Yubin boxes an answer and calls time as well, carefully analyzing their sides of the board. “Except you got the wrong answer. The seven here should be negative. I win.”

“You made me do math, for this? I can’t believe you,” Bora says to Yubin, balling up today’s paper slip of code (whose message was derived from an extremely long algebraic equation) and swallowing it, for the dramatics.

“Me either,” Gahyeon whines over Handong, Yubin, and Bora’s combined noise of disgust. “But don’t worry! Tomorrow I’ll make sure we all win. Yoohyeon will be convinced, I’m sure!”

Siyeon grimaces.

Tuesday:

The janitor’s office. It’s surprisingly comfy.

“Are we allowed to be in here?” Siyeon wonders.

Gahyeon loosens her suit tie and kicks her feet up on a beanbag chair. “Yeah, I hang out here all the time. I renovated the place. He loves it. Administration are losers and don’t value custodial workers enough to check in, so they haven’t found out yet.” She flicks on the flatscreen TV with one hand and rummages through a generous snack bin with the other. “Candy, anyone?”

Yubin ignores her proffered hand. “So did you manage to convince Yoohyeon to audition?”

“Yeah! I passed her a poem in Lit today.” Gahyeon moves a pile of mops to reveal a gaming console. “Not as wordy as her _‘Still must my chest sing out ‘ere this heart melts / Thy shine incomparable to all else’_ but I think it was pretty good!”

“And what did it say?”

“‘Roses are red, violets are blue. Gahyeonie thinks you should audition for Deja Vu!’”

“...That’s it?”

“That’s adorable,” Handong coos.

“Yeah, way better than your try, Yubs.” Bora snatches up a controller for herself and shoves another into Yubin’s hands. Yubin scoffs, but settles back into the foamy confines of the beanbag chair next to her.

Gahyeon hums thoughtfully. “I dunno about the Minji front, though. Does _‘This shrift of mine shall ne’er come forth to light / For how could I withstand a glow so bright?’_ sound relevant? I saw it on a homework assignment I borrowed from her.”

Siyeon sighs around a mouthful of Skittles.

Wednesday:

The soccer field. Gahyeon and Bora stand in front of either goal, competing to see who can punt the ball the farthest and most accurately. Their taunting shouts almost overpower the quiet intervention Handong and Yubin try to carry out with Siyeon on the bleachers.

“It’s time you realized, Siyeon.”

“We hate to tell you like this, but…”

“It has to be said.”

“...Bora is a menace to society.”

Normally, Siyeon would use her intimidating, wolfish stare to threaten anyone who dared to speak badly about her girlfriend. Now, however:

“...I realize that knocking Yoohyeon out, essentially kidnapping her, and threatening her with a baseball bat to audition _sounds_ bad, but…”

She trails off as Bora moves on to practice her tackles. The first attempt sends Gahyeon flying into her net. Now they understand why the younger pulled a massive amount of bubble wrap and duct tape from her bag before the start of the debrief.

“So you _did_ tackle that guy cleats up!”

“Hey, he was being a misogynistic dickhead! ...I mean, whaaat? Cleats up? I think you mean… surf’s up! The only thing I illegally tackle are those gnarly waves… after the beach is closed. Hahaha hang ten, dude!”

Gahyeon secures another layer of bubble wrap around her torso. Handong and Yubin stare pointedly.

“...Yeah. I know,” Siyeon groans.

Thursday:

The art room supply closet. Handong angrily mutters to herself as she tears whole containers of pens and rolls of fabric from the shelves. She tosses whatever she selects over her shoulder, and Gahyeon easily catches them and shoves them into her bottomless backpack.

“...Dongie, what are you doing?” Bora is the only one with enough nerve to ask.

Handong weighs two different spools of yarn in her hands and answers without looking back. “A lot more than necessary, out of the goodness of my heart.” She gives up on deciding and chucks them both over to Gahyeon.

“...You’re Minji now?” Bora guesses, confused.

Handong finally turns and rolls her eyes. “You all tried the other avenues. Direct confrontation. Cute subliminal messaging. Violent threatening. So that left me with the only other option: bribery.”

Bora makes a noise of understanding. Gahyeon nods sympathetically over the top of her bag.

“She said she’d try out if I make her some oddly specific costumes by then. Seriously, how am I supposed to make an LED lightsword?!” Handong snatches a packet of smiley face stickers to complete her raid.

Siyeon looks around at her team. “The only other option, really? Have none of you considered just _talking normally_ to her?”

Yubin raises a finger.

“Talking _constructively and encouragingly_ to her?” Siyeon amends.

Yubin drops her finger. Gahyeon fights to zip up her backpack, and staggers dangerously as she swings it back over her shoulders. She looks like a very cute, very offended turtle as she frowns up at Siyeon.

“Who does _that?_ ”

Handong sticks a smiley face to one squishy cheek, and plants a kiss on the other in thanks. Gahyeon tips over backwards.

Siyeon drops her head into her hands.

D-Day:

The music room. Only ten minutes left until auditions. Gahyeon pulls a whole trombone out of her pack as Siyeon reluctantly relays her final failure.

Siyeon had pulled Yoohyeon aside before their first class and attempted her _talking normally_ strategy.

_“Oh god. Oh no. Please not another one. Why have all of my friends been so weird this week? Why can’t you be an actual rebel delinquent and take my lunch money or something instead?”_

__

__

_Siyeon smiles apologetically, and offers her morning strawberry milk as penance. “Bora told me to tell you she’s sorry and she didn’t mean to actually knock you out.”_

_Yoohyeon takes it and shrugs one shoulder. “Oh, that’s okay. I tripped; she miscalculated a swing. It wouldn’t be the first time.”_

_Siyeon winces at the memory of the You & I scarf/staff prop incident. It’s a good thing Bora and Yoohyeon are weird enough that their joint concussions made them closer friends instead of mortal enemies._

_“It’s just… they’ve all been telling me I should try out for one of the lead roles. Which I blame on you because you_ had _to use my name for this one. And it’s a good play, really Siyeon, but… I’m just not comfortable with… an important role. I guess. You know?”_

_And Siyeon does know, because romantic meddling aside, she cares deeply for her friend and all of her quirks and insecurities. They all do. So if Yoohyeon really is content with another background role and continual heartache, Siyeon won’t try to force her to do or be otherwise._

_But she can still try to nudge her out of the wings._

_“I know I use my friends’ names for my scripts as a joke, but… Yoohyeon, I wrote this one specifically with you in mind for that role. You always brush off compliments, but you’re really such a good actor, and you’re always helping everyone else be the best they can be. I just want to see you shine before we all graduate. If you’re not comfortable with the idea, that’s chill… just know that all your friends are rooting for you no matter what.”_

_She pauses, and coolly tugs on the lapels of her leather jacket to make up for her moment of softness._

_Yoohyeon sips from the tiny straw and hands it back. Siyeon makes a happy noise and takes the carton in both hands to slurp the rest._

_“Yeah. Thanks Siyeon. Maybe next time.”_

Gahyeon makes sad trombone noises, right in Siyeon’s ear.

“‘Maybe next time’ yeah, that’s what she always says! She’s never going to confess at this rate!” Bora huffs.

Yubin crosses her arms. “If there has to be a next time, count me out of the task force. I don’t help strangers.”

“Don’t you do percussion?” Unable to hear their complaints, Siyeon clutches at her ear and hisses at Gahyeon. “Why do you know how to play the trombone?!”

“I’m a girl of many talents,” her small bandmate says innocently.

“Damn right you are.” Handong nods in approval as Gahyeon begins to slam a cowbell right next to Siyeon’s other ear as an example.

Siyeon gives up.

They've all tried their relative bests, but now there is nothing more they can do to convince (or coerce) Yoohyeon to audition. Phase One-point-five of the grand plan: a bust. Exit Yoohyeon’s friends.

_Enter Minji._


	2. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “O-oh, um… thanks. You… speak good, too.” Yoohyeon wants Bora to hit her with a baseball bat again.

INTERMISSION

Friday, lunchtime:

Yoohyeon walks on robotic legs up to the auditorium. All of her friends have gone mysteriously missing after school for the past week, which has left her alone and free to look at the sign-up sheets taped to the dressing room door. Each day she’s psyched herself up enough to march determinedly up to them. And each day, she stares at all of the names on the lists under each character, and ends up walking away, deflated.

Today marks the end of her after school ritual.

Today is the last day of sign-ups.

Her own name, courtesy of Siyeon’s vision, stares back at her. Taunting. Intimidating. The first day there had already been three signatures under it. Now all ten available lines have been filled out, with so many other actors more than willing to be the star of the show. Or, more likely, to shine beside the real lead as Jiu’s main person of conflict and interest.

She fidgets with her sweater sleeves as she fails to make today any different from the past few.

Another five minutes of staring and not reaching forward. That’s all she seems to be able to do, anyway.

She hangs her head and sighs, turning to go prepare for her next class. Sera will probably assign her an understudy role out of pity anyway, even if she doesn’t sign up for anything.

“Need a pen?”

Her head shoots up so fast she cricks her neck.

Concerned, warm eyes follow the movement of her hand as she winces and sheepishly massages it away.

“Are you alright?” Minji, the most beautiful and beloved girl in school, Yoohyeon’s terribly deep crush for more than three years now, stands before her with a worried knit in her brow and a helping hand half-outstretched.

Yoohyeon experiences her own case of deja vu. Freshman year, in this same hallway: the same pair of expressive eyes.

The day she decided to join the theatre club. The day she first met Minji. The start of a whole avalanche of some of the best and worst times of Yoohyeon’s high school life. The start of a hopeless crush. It all swims together in a vague haze before Minji’s full attention.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” Yoohyeon says weakly.

Minji’s eyes relax in relief. “Oh good.” She peers over Yoohyeon’s shoulder. “Were you… signing up for the auditions today?”

Yoohyeon blinks, and hurriedly scrambles to step out of her way. “Oh, yeah! I mean, no. I mean. Are you?”

It should be impossible for a giggle to sound so genuinely unpatronizing and so much like music, but Minji somehow pulls it off.

“Oh no, I was just going to talk to Sera about something. I signed up the other day.” She points in the vague direction of her name on the list, and Yoohyeon doesn’t have to look to know hers is the third and last one down under Jiu.

“Ah, right,” Yoohyeon mumbles. Of course; most everyone else signed up at the first opportunity, because they’re not lame.

Minji scans the list, and her eyebrows furrow again. It’s the accompanying pout that distracts Yoohyeon from coming up with a lie to save face, like _“oh, I hadn’t planned on signing up, I was just passing by and thought I’d check out the names, I haven’t come here every day after school just to chicken out, haha,”_ when she asks,

“Your name isn't on here yet, is it? What role are you going for?”

Yoohyeon blinks. “Uh… role. Right! Role.” She hastily glances over the list for the ones with little to no sign-ups. “Probably uh… Narrator #1. Or maybe… Narrator #2.”

Minji tilts her head, considering. It’s absolutely unfair how cute she looks like this, in her round wire frames and large sweater vest. Yoohyeon rubs at her neck again to distract herself from the sight.

“Well, you do have a beautiful voice,” Minji concludes like it’s a fact.

Yoohyeon’s hand stills. She squints suspiciously. “I’ve had, like, a grand total of five solo lines.” Where Minji got that conjecture from, she has no idea. As usual, it’s probably just Minji being an absolute sweetheart, like she is to everyone.

“Not true. Talking Puppy, winter semester of sophomore year? Animate Tree, junior year showcase? Both more than five. And you always help everyone else rehearse lines, so really, you’ve probably acted for every character we’ve had at least once. Also, I’ve heard you sing along to Yeri’s impromptu High School Musical breaks. You have a beautiful voice, Yoohyeon. It deserves to be heard for more than plot description.”

Yoohyeon is so stunned that Minji remembers even her minute roles, she doesn’t see the way that Minji’s eyes widen as if she didn’t mean to say all of that, with that much conviction. They avoid each other’s bashful gazes for a long beat.

“O-oh, um… thanks. You… speak good, too.” Yoohyeon wants Bora to hit her with a baseball bat again.

But a smile breaks out on Minji’s face. “Thanks. You know, I think everyone liked our voices together when we did the read-through, too. You’re not going to audition for Yoohyeon’s character?” Her smile turns the slightest bit teasing. “It has your name written all over it.”

Yoohyeon groans at both the joke and the memory of her friends’ weird insistence that she try for the role. “No… no, I don’t think I will.” Even though she agrees. Their voices really did sound good together. It’s a shame she’s too cowardly to look Minji in the eye for more than three seconds at a time, much less be the main subject of scrutiny for an audience of many more eyes than that.

“If you don’t mind my asking… why not?”

At the almost sad note in her voice, Yoohyeon does it. She looks Minji in the eye.

And there’s just something about Minji’s gaze, so open and earnest, so respectful of what Yoohyeon might not want to share but so ready to receive and hear anything she does want to. It’s maybe what makes her such a captivating actor: she expresses her emotions so vividly and empathetically with her body and voice; it’s what definitely makes her such an incredible person: she doesn’t put on an act when she is just Minji, and her warmth is real and honest and just as vivid. There’s just something about Minji that makes Yoohyeon’s awkward self almost uncomfortable in her ineffable presence.

There’s also just something about Minji that makes Yoohyeon inexplicably okay with being uncomfortable. Her heart pounds in her chest. She drops her hand from her neck to pick at her sleeves.

“I guess… I love theatre, don’t get me wrong,” she is quick to preface, and Minji nods encouragingly, and that’s all it takes for it all to just tumble out: “I love being on stage and working behind the scenes with everyone. It’s fun, and it makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. Running lines, dressing up, moving the stage around… making something imagined come to life; it’s beautiful to be a part of. I like being a background character and watching it all happen. But sometimes, the bigger roles… expressing yourself, being seen… I do want that. To make even one person in the audience feel the emotions my character does. It’s amazing, that kind of expression. And I think… I think I might be able to do it, if I tried.”

Her hands have come up to gesture emphatically along with her words. They pause, palms up, a helpless shrug of defeat.

“I’m just scared,” she confesses, and averts her eyes. “It just feels like too much for someone… like me.” Someone who can’t walk down the hallway without tripping over her own feet. Someone too cowardly to even initiate a conversation with the subject of her affections for three years. Someone who isn't like Minji.

The hall goes quiet. Yoohyeon bites her tongue.

And then she feels a warm hand carefully take one of her own, interrupting her posture of resignation. Minji’s voice is soft, and Yoohyeon has another moment of deja vu.

“You probably don’t, but do you happen to remember the day we first met?”

Of course Yoohyeon remembers. She cringes. “Kinda hard to forget me slamming my forehead into your locker door.”

Freshman Yoohyeon was running late to class. Freshman Yoohyeon was as clumsy as current Yoohyeon still is. Freshman Yoohyeon wasn’t looking where she was going, and sprinted straight into an open locker owned by one very pretty, very startled girl.

“Glad to know you didn’t sustain terrible amnesia from that. I’ve never seen someone make impact with something so hard.” Minji’s full-blown teasing smile is almost enough to distract Yoohyeon from her embarrassment, and the fact that Minji still has her hand resting on hers. Almost.

“But I ask because… I hope you remember what you said when we passed through this same hallway.”

More like stumbled through, with a frantically worried Minji practically carrying a blissfully concussed Yoohyeon, after Yoohyeon insisted she was fine (she wasn’t) and Minji insisted she needed to see the nurse (she did). So, maybe Yoohyeon’s memory might have been affected after all. She remembers cutting through the auditorium as the fastest way across campus, and for some reason pausing to sign up for the theatre club right at this same door with Minji, but not much of the finer details. She always thought she was just leaving embarrassment at herself to distant memory, but maybe she should have been more worried about that second concussion courtesy of Bora.

“You just stopped suddenly, and I asked if you were alright, and you pointed out the sign-up sheet for theatre. And you said, ‘You. Glow. You should sign.’”

And now Yoohyeon vaguely remembers coming to, sprawled on her back, how her addled brain had transfixed upon the fact that the figure kneeling over her with dark hair and wide eyes and a tiny voice must have been some sort of angel. How her fuzzy vision had finally managed to focus five minutes later in this very hallway, and it was onto the loud poster tacked beside the dressing room door. How she connected the two thoughts together, and came to the conclusion that angels should be allowed to shine so that everyone else can bask in their warm glow too.

“You wouldn’t let it go, so I said, ‘I’m not a star.’ And I know you probably weren’t lucid, considering, but you looked at me and said, ‘Yeah you are,’ as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. It sounds silly, but…” Minji tucks a strand of her now boldly dyed golden hair behind her ear, almost shyly, “...that was the most precious thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

To Minji. To the most perfect person in school, who is showered in compliments far more flattering and eloquent everyday. To a star who seems to have always been destined to captivate audiences and command the stage and be pined after only from afar.

“Huh?” blurts Yoohyeon.

Minji smiles; a small, private thing. “Everyone has this image of me now. No one seems to remember freshman Minji, the most painfully shy kid in class.” Her voice is still soft, so different from her bursts of bright laughter from a circle of friends or the powerful monologues she delivers to an auditorium of hundreds. “I almost never spoke unless I had to, and even then everyone had to ask me to repeat myself until I almost cried from nervousness. It wasn’t until I joined theatre that I found my voice, found that I could shout my heart out to a bunch of people and not be scared. You kind of had to, if you wanted to be heard over Bora." 

Minji chuckles wryly, and Yoohyeon remembers it: her arm slung around slightly taller shoulders for support, an impossibly small whisper next to her ear.

_“...But you’re bleeding.”_

_“Well I’m! Not leaving! ‘Til the angel signs!”_

_“...”_

_“Not leavin’!”_

_“...Then, will you… sign up with me?”_

_“‘Course! Ow. Why’s my head bleeding?”_

“But the point is, I was encouraged to step out of my comfort zone. I was encouraged to grow a little more into me. And that was all because you told me I was a star, and because I made the insurmountably difficult decision to try to make it true for myself. So, Yoohyeon,” present day Minji says, fishing a pen out from her bag with one hand, the other still gently playing with Yoohyeon’s palm, “will you sign up with me?”

She steps forward, moving Yoohyeon’s arm with her so they both face the audition list. With one confident stroke, Minji draws in an additional line under the role written for Yoohyeon. She turns with a bright, expectant twinkle in her eye. Her fingers curl Yoohyeon’s own around the pen. Yoohyeon can only stare as she wraps both her hands around her fist, ensuring she has a grip on it, before squeezing gently and letting go.

“You don’t have to. It’s scary, I know. But sometimes, growing pains are worth it.”

Yoohyeon belatedly realizes she is taller than Minji now, as she has to look slightly down to search her earnest gaze. She thinks about all her chaotic but well-meaning friends, who have been trying to tell her the same thing for so long. She thinks about their uncertain futures, how scary that is too, and how this is the last year for her to treasure all of the marks they’ve made on the school together.

She thinks about the lasting, different impact one memory could have on two different people, about the impact her clumsy but passionate steps could have on herself, and then she wonders why she has spent so long avoiding that feeling of warm conviction and empowering honesty that she now finds in Minji’s eyes.

For the first time all week, and even in four years, Yoohyeon faces the audition sheet with a smile of determination.

She signs her name on the line Minji drew for her.

And then Minji smiles that bright smile of hers, eyes crinkling with happiness as she says, “I’ll see you later, then!” and leaves Yoohyeon with the slightest hint of her perfume in the air and a brush of her fingers over Yoohyeon’s hand.

It takes another five minutes of standing there, dazed, until Yeri and Sooyoung brush past to plead their case to Sera again — _“and because of you I’ve got the streeength to staaaart, yeah yeah yeah EVERYDAAAY!”_ — for Yoohyeon to realize she has to actually move to prepare for the ‘later’ that is actually very soon.

It takes a lot longer than five minutes for her pulse to finally slow down.

END INTERMISSION

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you return to your seats for Act Two, please do feel free to throw some tomatoes around this meager black box venue so that the director will stop glancing over at a space opera next door, especially when a rock band and a bard are scheduled to perform next... please


	3. Act Two: Scene 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...Remember, you need to raise your voice in order to bring down the house. Our inner insufficiencies aren’t the only things we project!”
> 
> For Yoohyeon, though, whose face is the only green one in the room, those inner insufficiencies are one step away from turning projection into projectile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is no ethical implementation of consistency under writing -- *dodges tomato*

ACT TWO

SCENE 1

GUARD #8: Halt! For conspiracy against the throne, Her Majesty has hereby banished you from the kingdom.

GUARD #9: Leave now, if you know what’s good for you.

SUA: Really, now? You think you can scare me? I have to laugh. _She laughs._

GUARD #8: You are unarmed. We… we have swords!

GUARD #9: A-and the authority of Her Majesty!... why is she still laughing?

SUA: You poor, nameless lackeys. What do you think happened to guards numbers one through seven?

GUARD #8: Huh—

SUA: RAAAA! FWOOSH!!! THIS BOUQUET OF BLUE FLOWERS TURNS INTO SUPER HOT FIRE!!! BOOM!! FWOOOOOSH RIGHT AT YOUR FACES! MUAHAHA!!!

GUARD #8 & 9: AAAAAHHH—

“Cut! Thank you, Bora, you can let Jae and Wonpil go now!” Sera winces and turns to the students in the row beside her. “It’s a pretty visual idea, Siyeon, but we may have to do without the fire effects.”

“Oh, don’t worry, teach’. Yubin already said she can make it happen. It won’t come out of the budget.” Siyeon sends a thumbs up to Bora, who cheerfully blows her a kiss as if she didn’t just send two of her classmates flying off stage. Yubin nods impassively.

Sera shuffles the sign-up sheets nervously. “You mean, with toilet paper rolls and flashlights, right?”

Yubin shakes her head. Siyeon is suddenly hard of hearing again.

“We’re out of blue tissue paper,” Handong intones from her left in way of explanation. “Anyway, where is Yoohyeon? Even if she’s not auditioning, I refuse to have made these for nothing.” For some reason Sera is too afraid to ask about, she has a papier-mâché wolf head, as well as cowboy boots and a jester hat, in her lap. Gahyeon, dressed in a crisp suit, gingerly moves the glowing staff that leans on the armrest in between them. She leans over and flips up her dark sunglasses to give Yubin an apologetic look.

“I talked to my guy, and I can only get fifteen canisters of propane instead of twenty. Is that okay?”

“I suppose I’ll make it work.”

Sera, unable to avoid liability now that she’s overheard her students’ pyromaniac plans, glances blankly down the row that serves as her trustworthy panel of advisors. “Hang on. Gahyeon sweetie, now that I think about it, what are you doing here? Only theatre club members are supposed to be here to vote on casting.”

Gahyeon flicks her sunglasses back down, despite the darkened auditorium audience lights. “Yeah, I know! I’m an actor now. I signed up for auditions!” She leans back in her seat, arms crossed assuredly.

Sera flicks through the papers in her hands. Sure enough, pencilled in the margins under a role marked by a smiley face sticker, is Gahyeon’s name.

The teacher looks from her best students’ neutral faces to the pale faces of everyone else as they collectively recover from Bora’s audition.

Her smile is calm. “I don’t get paid enough for this.” She claps to get their attention. “Alright, my lovely children, we have our last role! Those trying out for the character of Yoohyeon, please come to the front row with your scripts turned to the monologue in Act Two, Scene 3. Yena, you’re up first; everyone remember, you need to raise your voice in order to bring down the house. Our inner insufficiencies aren’t the only things we project!”

For Yoohyeon, though, whose face is the only green one in the room, those inner insufficiencies are one step away from turning projection into projectile. She makes it to the front with her script crumpled in a sweaty fist, and all but collapses into the last seat in the corner of the room. This is her typical spot for these things. Normally she lounges there and cheers her classmates on in their fight for the main characters; there’s no need for her to sit close to the center stage spotlight as an auditionee for Cult Member #4.

Except today she isn't trying to be Cult Member #4. She is trying to be Yoohyeon.

Which may very well be the hardest thing she’s ever done, excluding the time she tried to beat Bora in a shouting competition.

Her heart rate, having just recovered from her encounter with Minji four hours ago, picks up again and blurs her breaths together as Sera exposits to the rest of the class.

“Okay folks, this is the last for the main cast. You all know how this works. Once we’re finished, you’ll have a fifteen minute intermission to discuss politely and diplomatically amongst yourselves. Then — thank you for volunteering, Yuna; please take a seat once you untangle Lia from the curtains — Yuna will hand out the ballot forms, and you will have five minutes to get them filled out and handed to me. Ultimately, the scriptwriter-slash-director and I will have the final say, but your votes will be tallied and taken into heavy consideration.”

Even though she is staring at her feet, trying and failing to collect her inner balance, Yoohyeon can just feel the judgmental scrutiny from her classmates as they look down the line of final candidates. The shadows in her corner can’t get dark enough.

“Democratic fallacies aside, remember that who you vote for is who you think will represent their character, and us as a club, best. I won’t downplay it: Yoohyeon’s character is one of the most significant roles in the play by far. Choose wisely.”

Siyeon, now that Phase One-point-five fell through and Bora’s audition is complete, disinterestedly scans the many hopeful Yoohyeon try-outs. It still is her play, and she can at least try to cast Jiu a partner that won’t entirely make real-life Yoohyeon want to cry whenever she sees them acting together.

Siyeon blinks.

The last person down the row looks like she’s going to be sick. She also looks like...

“Wait…?”

Sera shushes the room, eager to get through the whopping eleven candidates who want Minji to point a sword at them. “Alright, quiet everyone… for the part of Yoohyeon! Go ahead, Yena.”

The first contender clears her throat nervously. _“Your two eyes, their glow is lost. Please erase all my memories…”_

She projects far too much out of nerves. The next two don’t project at all, and Siyeon takes the entirety of their attempts to make sure her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her.

“Guys, look, that’s…”

_“...Far away through the dense fog, the far path I departed on only left hurtful marks. Even as I try to grasp the ends of the dream; eventually, longer and longer, I fall asleep in a deep silence...”_

The next four are decent enough, and Sera scribbles notes down next to their names on the sign-up sheet. In between the next person’s entrance onto stage, Bora pretends to drop a coin from the wings and chases after it, even though there is audibly no coin. From her vantage point in transition to the next role, she noticed exactly what Siyeon has just now accepted with growing excitement. Her frantic, not-so-subtle arm windmilling catches her friends’ attention and draws it to the farthest corner in the front row.

Handong’s hand flies to her mouth in shock. Gahyeon tears her sunglasses off of her face and gapes. Even Yubin inhales sharply in disbelief.

“...Yoohyeon?!”

_“...Oh now, holding this pain, like the day I abandoned everything. It grows more painful every day. Endlessly, in front of my eyes, deja vu. Oh, deja vu. Deja vu, oh deja vu!… so I’ve fallen now...”_

The next three are far too dramatic, attempting to outdo the previous auditonees with breathy infliction and angsty poses. Sera tactfully turns to disguise her sorrow with a cough, and Siyeon uses that opportunity to snatch the sign-up sheet from her clipboard. She nearly cheers at what she finds.

Oblivious to her friends’ delight, Yoohyeon runs her lines on an infinite loop in her head in an effort to stabilize her stomach. They provide her with little comfort as she listens to her classmates either stumble or breeze through them, these same lines she is supposed to repeat and win over scores of bored faces with. Her breaths come shallowly, and only bits of her surroundings filter into her awareness as she tries not to lose her nerve and run out of the auditorium. Someone yawns. People mutter to each other in side conversations. She is the last to go, so no one will be paying attention, and she’s stuck trying to decide if that’s a blessing or just plain humiliating when she hears her name hissed from behind her.

Through her dizziness she manages to look up and turn, and suddenly it’s no longer all she can do to hold in her guts, but to hold in her laughter.

Her friends are looking at her in shock. Siyeon has a wide grin on her face as she waves what looks like Sera’s notes in the air, pointing at her name at the bottom, and then her grin is wiped away as she accidentally hits it against some odd, glowing staff, and the paper gets sliced clean in half. Handong struggles to keep Gahyeon’s elbows out of the apparent weapon’s way as she wriggles in her seat and sends vigorous thumbs ups. To help, Yubin takes a… clown hat?... out of her lap and, having nowhere else to set it, blankly places it on her head.

A typical, comical freeze-frame of her lawless, lovable friends. Yoohyeon is suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of nostalgia. She knows she will miss this come the end of the year, and even though they all have their whole futures ahead of them, her chest brims with determination to do their proud smiles justice now.

“Yeah! Go Yoohyeon, whooo! Knock ‘em out! Like I did to you, but like, not literally!”

Sera silences Bora with a warning look, and snatches the remains of her notes back from Siyeon. Her gaze is nothing but kind, however, when she finds Yoohyeon in her corner as well.

“Last but certainly not least, trying out for the role of Yoohyeon… Yoohyeon!”

She lets her crumpled script fall to the ground. Ever since lunchtime, Yoohyeon has been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Now her heart still pounds, but as she manages to walk up the stage stairs without tripping, something else pumps through her veins.

Resolve. Excitement.

Contentment, borne of the simple but astounding fact that no matter the outcome, she will always have her friends’ love and support.

_“You have a beautiful voice. It deserves to be heard.”_

The sole spotlight is hot on the crown of her head. She takes in a deep, steady breath, and closes her eyes.

_“...As long as I can breathe, I can’t let go of you again. We’ll be together for every moment, just… don’t move far away from me. I want these moments to all be false; I hope these are passing delusions. If through wet tears, through belated regrets, I can go return…”_

She opens her eyes as Yoohyeon — the enigmatic, rightful ruler of Polaris. Like she is speaking into a fog of sinister doubts instead of the shadows of the auditorium, she finds the sparkling gaze of Jiu, her queen: eyes that make it so easy to mourn the loss of what might have been.

_“...So now, I’m holding this pain; like how you abandoned everything, it grows clearer every day. Endlessly, in front of my eyes… deja vu.”_

She finishes the monologue, almost tasting the last syllables on her lips. A smile spreads slowly and then breaks out all at once, beaming, on Minji’s face. Yoohyeon blinks rapidly and ducks her head, shy in the applause that follows.

Just like that, it’s over. She moves to leave the stage on legs that have turned to jelly in relief.

“Well done all, but we’re not done quite yet. All Yoohyeon and Jiu auditionees, please return to the stage.”

And just like that, it’s not over. Yoohyeon tumbles down the stairs, and is caught by Bora, who gives her bottom an encouraging squeeze.

Sera stands and speaks over the confused mumbles around the auditorium. “The main characters of Jiu and Yoohyeon are important to consider as individuals, but they are really given life through their synergy together. Two queens, a mirror of memory and polarizing perception. It’s fantastic writing,” Siyeon beams, “and it needs a fantastic duo to do it justice. For your votes, I would have you also consider the two characters as a unit, so we will now observe the potential Jiu and Yoohyeon’s interactions through a scene of the actors’ choosing.”

Yoohyeon whimpers. “I would have preferred it if you’d have let me just fall,” she faintly tells Bora, clutching onto the banister for support.

The drama club seems to have mixed feelings about this last-minute announcement as well.

“We’ve been here for two hours already, that’s…” Yuna looks aghast at the three Jiu and eleven Yoohyeon potentials, and gives up on counting. “...A lot of scenes.”

“Thirty-three,” Gahyeon supplies helpfully.

“Okay, I’ll be honest, I auditioned for Jiu as a form of peaceful protest,” Yeri admits loudly, strutting into the spotlight and tossing her hair to one side. “The only way you’ll actually be graced with my presence as a leading role will be me as Sharpay Evans, in the production of High School Musical: The Play that we _will_ put on one day. Mark my words, Sera.”

She struts off. Sooyoung leads them all in a gasp at the dramatics of it all.

“Twenty-two,” Yubin amends.

Yena, Sakura, Yuqi, Mijoo, and two of the Chaeyoungs exchange glances.

“...Nah, we already know we flopped.”

“Mission failed. We’ll get ‘em next time.”

“I have an essay due yesterday, I am _not_ trying to get home in two hours.”

They remain rooted in their assorted seats throughout the auditorium. Questioning eyebrows turn towards Gahyeon and Yubin.

“Ten,” they calculate in unison.

More muttering, a couple boos.

“That’s still too much.”

“Is this what we get for going over the budget for Rose Blue?”

“Sera… listen. _I’ve gotta say what’s on my miiind—_ ”

“What scene should we do?” A soft voice cuts through the chaos and sends a jolt up Yoohyeon’s spine. A steady hand, much gentler than Bora’s mysteriously vanished claw-like grip, comes up to prevent her from tripping again.

Minji looks to be the only one unperturbed by the additional audition qualifiers. A few of the other potential Yoohyeons have begun to shuffle uncertainly back to the stage, but Minji is already here by real-life Yoohyeon’s side. In comfortable jeans and a simple blouse, she looks just as ready to get back under the spotlight and command an audience as she would in a Victorian gown and a dazzling diadem. Confident, poised. She looks every bit the queen she is supposed to be. Yoohyeon swallows.

“I, uh… you… you were great, by the way,” she stammers, her brain overriding her mouth with the need to make sure Minji knows.

“You were too,” Minji says like it’s obvious, not conceited or gloating in the slightest, just like she was great and Yoohyeon was great — and Yoohyeon is no mathlete Yubin or genius Gahyeon — but she thinks that, maybe, something in there adds up. She feels some of that earnesty seep into her own bones, like royalty could run in her veins, too. Then Minji giggles. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, yeah, um…” Yoohyeon’s eyes dart nervously around, from the spotlight a few strides away to her friends’ suspicious huddle a few rows into the audience seats to the way the other Jiu candidate, Minji’s friend Seola, has her eyes narrowed in their direction from the other side of the stage. Flustered, Yoohyeon’s sweaty palm slips off the banister. Almost automatically, Minji’s hand comes up again to steady her by the arm.

“Also, no, you will not be allowed to read off of the script. Improvisation is mildly encouraged and tacitly expected.” Sera sits and doodles on her clipboard with a serene smile, as her class erupts in another dramatic gasp.

Seola, who was the only serious competitor to Minji for Jiu’s role anyway, watches the way her friend’s hand trails down Yoohyeon’s arm and ends with a soft, seemingly unconscious link of their pinkies, as the two of them murmur to each other in surprise at the addendum. Her sharp, calculating stare turns contemplative. She knew going into the audition that Minji would win the part, but she also knows that if she actually really wanted it, the golden-hearted girl wouldn’t hesitate to give it up to her. Minji has always gone out of her way to make others happy.

“Improv? I’m out,” Seola announces with an internal chuckle at Minji’s confused look. Seola is good at improv, and Minji knows it. “Good luck with that, Jiu.” She winks at Yoohyeon, who looks completely terrified even as she grips fully onto Minji’s hand for support, and yeah, Seola can’t help but let her laughter go as she bows out.

“Five,” Gahyeon manages from where Bora has rejoined their row and wrangled them all into a huddle so tight their bodies look fused together. “You know, Siyeon, when you said ‘put our heads together’...”

“Shush and help me think! This wasn’t in the script!”

Honestly, Yoohyeon is far too busy mentally flipping through the scenes of the actual script to wonder what in the world that could mean. Because, improv? With Minji? Sure, she might be able to memorize a fifteen-line monologue in three hours, and sure, she was honestly super impressed with the story and perused it constantly at home throughout the week, but right now none of it comes to mind. Out of all of the dialogue with Jiu, out of all of the poignant interactions that could sell their chemistry… Yoohyeon’s brain draws a blank.

“If you all are quite done with your display of teenage angst, let’s begin. Yerin and… I guess Minji’s the last woman standing… you’re up.”

Yoohyeon lets Minji pass her up to the stage, and instantly misses the small comfort Minji’s hand in hers had been. She can only stare from the bottom of the stage again as Minji takes in a measured breath, and becomes Jiu to four other Yoohyeons.

They all put in their best. Interest revived after this excitement, the rest of the theatre club watches actively and intently as Minji adapts to each one. It is stunningly impressive. Her partners whisper a scene suggestion to her, and she nods and goes with it. And each time she absolutely delivers, doing her honest best to make up for any awkward pauses in dialogue or miscommunicated acting movements, and it is inspiring as it is intimidating.

Yoohyeon watches, in awe. There is no doubt that Minji deserves each lead role she’s had. The main spotlight glows down equally on both actors center stage, but it is she who shines; queen and talent both, the other four Yoohyeons falter under such an imposing figure. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Sera’s and Siyeon’s discontent. The character of Yoohyeon is supposed to be Jiu’s equal just as she is her antithesis.

_“...Will you sign up with me?”_

It hits Yoohyeon like a locker door to the head. Timid, wide eyes; confident, warm smiles. Minji and Yoohyeon have seen both in each other.

If Minji can be Jiu, then Yoohyeon can damn well be the Yoohyeon she deserves.

Her friends notice the way her entire countenance freezes, and they assume the worst. Frantically, they scramble for anything to assist with her assumed panic. Siyeon and Bora engage in a weird miming act that starts out as encouraging gestures and ends in Bora attacking Siyeon’s head with kisses. Gahyeon is elbows deep in her backpack in hopes of conjuring something to help, and Handong’s lap slowly becomes laden with a pile of soccer gloves, plastic kazoos, math textbooks, and bags of multicolored pipe cleaners. Yubin just sighs and woefully removes the jester’s hat.

Yoohyeon gives them a weird look as Yeeun utters her closing line. Her legs move to switch places with her, automatic like in their memorized trek after school to face off with the audition sheet — except now, they are stiff with adrenaline instead of dread. She clambers up the side stairs. Then a literal light goes off in the corner of her vision, and she backtracks to detour to her friends’ row, snatching the glowing red staff with a “not exactly a lightsword, but it’ll do, thanks Dongie!” and darting back to the stage before their gaping expressions.

She skids to a stop in front of her partner, who has relaxed into Minji. Not Jiu. Just a girl who has found her voice. She smiles invitingly, and like this — just them under the spotlight, Minji’s attention fully on her — Yoohyeon nearly forgets that all other eyes are on her as well.

Heart racing as fast as her head, she also forgets that she hasn’t talked to Minji about what scene she wants to play out.

“Yoohyeon and Minji, are you ready?”

Yoohyeon nods. Minji tilts her head slightly in confusion. Sera calls out “action!” and then it’s too late to do anything but act.

The auditorium is silent, but their matching confusion is palpable when Yoohyeon steps out of the spotlight and stands, facing the wings, away from Minji. She grips the scepter with one fist, head bowed low beneath its glittering head.

Jiu breaks the silence. “Yoohyeon?”

Yoohyeon stares at her feet, heart in her throat as Jiu calls her name again.

“Yoohyeon.” A pause. “Why do you stand there in the shadows?”

“‘Tis not wherefore I stand in the shadows, but where the shadows lie in me.”

Siyeon sucks in a breath of recognition from the audience. Yoohyeon hears Minji shift behind her, and prays she understands as well.

“Yoohyeon,” Jiu repeats, but this time a note of despair is clear; Yoohyeon grins to herself because maybe yeah, synergy, and definitely something adding up, as she pleads: “Will you not face me? What have you in your hands?”

“It matters not, Your Majesty,” Yoohyeon forces her voice to harden as she turns. “What matters, what should have mattered, what will never matter as much as this — you do not know what you hold in your own hands.”

Minji’s confused head tilt has turned into the regal regard of Queen Jiu. She stands in the light with her empty hands clasped before her, calm even as she searches the shadows with worried eyes.

“I hold nothing in my hands. I stand before you honest and true, as I always have.”

Yoohyeon speaks as she takes slow steps towards her. “Nothing, but power. Nothing, but the fate of the kingdom. Nothing…” she pauses at the outer edges of the spotlight, eyes locked on her queen, “...but all of me.”

Jiu’s eyes flicker from the staff to her set jaw, still managing to maintain an air of calm and control. Until Yoohyeon drops to one knee, just inside the circle of light.

“Yoohyeon…” Jiu falters a step backwards, hands breaking from their trained position as if to reach out to her, but drawing back at the fire Yoohyeon regards her with.

“Your Majesty, just as my heart betrays me, I have betrayed you.”

Jiu shakes her head, as if refusing to believe what she knows is true. “Why… why do you call me by my title, as if I am nothing more than your queen?”

Yoohyeon bows her chin once more, unable to mask the unsteadiness in her voice. “Why do you call me by my name, as if I am nothing less than yours?” She leans heavily on the staff and drops to both knees, as if these words take all the strength out of her.

She feels more than hears Jiu’s sob as she steps towards her, hands fully outstretched to help her up.

It is then that Yoohyeon strikes, the head of the scepter sweeping in a large arc towards Jiu’s neck. More than one person in the audience sucks in a breath this time.

Yoohyeon stills her hand just short of a fatal blow. Slowly, she lifts her head to see her queen staring down at her, brokenhearted.

Yoohyeon almost forgets herself in that instance, so taken aback is she by the sadness and resignation in Minji’s face. A thought flashes through her mind: She would do anything to make sure she never has to wear that look for real. Whether that comes from character Yoohyeon or real Yoohyeon, she can’t know for sure.

Numbly, she drops the staff into Jiu’s hands, and collects herself enough to adlib:

“To relinquish control is weakness. I have always been weak to the shadows of doubt that plague my mind. Weaker still have I been to love. Only the strong are deserving of the throne.”

Jiu takes a step back, and then another, and another, until she stands at the fringe of the spotlight opposite Yoohyeon, the weapon a symbol of power pointed down at her as if to knight or to strike. They stare at each other for a long, solemn moment.

And then Jiu lets the staff fall from her hand.

“You, more than anyone, ought to know I am not strong. Is that not why you sought the weight of the kingdom?”

She tears her eyes from Yoohyeon’s trembling lips, and turns away.

“I am sorry that my hands are not strong enough to make this right. To take what you ask of me. To lose what I must surrender. But above all, Yoohyeon, I am sorry that my hands were not strong enough to hold your heart.”

In sparing a traitor’s life, Jiu relinquishes her control.

Yoohyeon, for the first time, is more powerful than her queen.

Her shaky hands close around the staff, and she rises with the righteous fury of one deserving but still, forever, so weak.

As she stabs Jiu in the back, it is unclear from whom the anguished cry comes. Yoohyeon draws back and drops the staff into the space left of Minji’s elbow, where she had been careful to fake her blow. Jiu collapses backwards into Yoohyeon’s waiting arms. Yoohyeon tenderly lays Jiu’s head upon her lap as she kneels again: queens made equal in surrender, together, under the spotlight.

The scene freezes.

For a moment, there is nothing but Yoohyeon’s tremulous breaths. An ad-lib here or there in lieu of a forgotten line is more than common, especially in a club full of short attention spans and questionable creativity. But this? This entire melodramatic exchange? Nearly all of it completely made up on the spot. A bold, rash decision on Yoohyeon’s part to attempt to recreate Deja Vu’s most important, climactic scene. One that relies heavily on established tension between the two leads instead of the easy, rapport-building banter the other actors went with. Minji lies still in her arms, as quiet as their audience. Yoohyeon squeezes her eyes shut in pained anticipation.

Just as she begins to think she should start running now to get a headstart on Siyeon, surely pissed that she’s botched her precious play, the entire room breaks out in thunderous applause.

Her eyes fly open, meeting Minji’s disoriented gaze as she blinks away the spotlight in her vision.

Deja vu strikes again. “Um, hi,” Yoohyeon whispers, lamely. “You alright?”

“Hi.” Minji’s smile is blinding below her, even upside-down. “Are you? You look shell-shocked.”

Yoohyeon rubs at her neck and averts her eyes sheepishly. “I didn’t expect you to fall, to be honest.”

Minji laughs as she sits up. “Thanks for catching me.” And suddenly her arms are around Yoohyeon in a hug — _“you were great, by the way”_ — and Yoohyeon is overwhelmed with her scent and her softness and everything just Minji.

Her ascension is halted as quickly as it began as her classmates bombard them with slaps on the back and teasing reenactments of their impromptu scene. Seola pulls Minji away with a confusingly smug smirk, and Handong finally stops the fun on stage with a single cough as someone accidentally trails the lightsword-slash-staff along the curtains and burns a large section off.

Sera interrupts before Yoohyeon, having regained some of her senses, can blanch and shriek about the invention she so flippantly allowed Yoohyeon to handle in her clumsy hands, in front of Minji’s face no less.

“Fifteen minutes to discuss! If you are inclined to fight, take it into the dressing room. I should probably forbid you from using that prop as a weapon, though — Handong, Yubin; have Bora give you my lecture about liability lawsuits, she should have it memorized by now — but I expect you all back here in one piece for the vote, okay?”

The row of her ‘responsible’ students exchange a nod. Gahyeon slips her shades down and slinks off to infiltrate the small circles that have broken out to argue about the best and worst auditions. The other four tackle Yoohyeon as she comes down from the stage.

“One,” Yubin concludes the count, simple and cool.

“I _knew_ you were perfect for the role, I’m so proud of you!” Siyeon shouts, and then backs up to coolly slick her hair back, pretending she wasn’t just smothering her friend in a hug.

Bora has no such qualms about personal space. “Whooooo! Go Yoohyeon, that’s my Yoohyeon, you better eff it up—! Did you just wipe off my kisses?!”

“I refused to make you a fursuit, so here’s your Twilight werewolf head.” Handong tosses Yoohyeon a tissue paper monstrosity, which she immediately tries to shove over her face for protection. “I’m going to make you and Minji far more appealing outfits, don’t worry. Really. Don’t worry about it. Leave the costume visualization to me. Please.”

By the time Yuna comes around with the ballots, Yoohyeon’s hair is irreparably mussed from all of her friends’ affectionate tousling and Bora’s unstoppable smooches, and Gahyeon has returned with a pout.

“My services were not required. The tree of life has escaped the era.”

Which is code for: Yoohyeon absolutely _killed_ it, and everyone Gahyeon talked to plans to vote her into her rightful role. Which means Gahyeon’s plots at schmoozing via Men in Black memory wipe attempts weren’t even necessary. Which apparently means she has to switch her sunglasses out for Yoohyeon’s custom wolf head, and slouch brooding next to Handong for comfort.

Yoohyeon is confused, but she’s heard enough of Gahyeon’s poetry and chaotic underpinnings to not question it. Or the fact that her name is on the ballot under a smiley face sticker.

“You voted for me, right, Yoo?” Gahyeon asks mournfully.

“...Right,” Yoohyeon confirms, circling it despite her misgivings.

“And me for Sua, sexiest protagonist with villainous tendencies?”

Yoohyeon scoffs. “Yes, Bora.”

“And yourself for Yoohyeon?” Siyeon looks up from her own ballot, eyes narrowed, just to make sure.

Yoohyeon rolls her eyes. “No, actually, I think I’m gonna write in Wonpil—”

She is rendered speechless as Bora snatches the paper from her hand, balls it up, and swallows it.

“Like hell you are! Eugh. That doesn’t get any easier, does it?”

Yoohyeon does not want to know what Bora has been up to that implies that this is a recurring thing. “Wh—I was being sarcastic!”

“Well, I’m not taking any chances! You can be an idiot, sometimes!”

“Coming from _you?!_ ”

“A menace,” Handong mutters, consolitarily patting the mass of grey tissue paper beside her. Yubin nods in agreement. Siyeon pretends she can’t hear again, and hands Yoohyeon a new ballot.

“Thank you for your time and varying degrees of socially acceptable energy! Our final Dramatis Personae will be posted first thing in the morning on Monday. Have a good weekend, folks!” Sera shuffles the stack of papers in front of her with finality and sends a proud smile around the room, lingering on Yoohyeon.

And sure, maybe Yoohyeon can be an idiot, sometimes. Maybe her cowardly reputation precedes her. Maybe she is still scared of wanting things that seem bigger than her.

But before she exits the auditorium, her eyes wander the familiar throng of people who have all helped each other find their voice over the years. They glance over her preposterously well-intentioned friends. Her potential castmates, brimming with talent. They land on Minji’s face, all performed heartbreak now easily erased, and out of all of the costumes she has worn throughout the years, Yoohyeon thinks she looks so much more at home wearing that bright smile. Each corner of the room lights up in reflection of her gentle glow.

Larger than life. A spotlight of assurance.

And ready for her to catch in her arms.

Yoohyeon’s heart swells with newfound confidence in her conviction that — while she might be an idiot, and she might be scared — there is nothing she has ever wanted more.

_Enter Yoohyeon, as Yoohyeon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to take this cue to cue, but I got a tad carried away with this single scene, so... I am very serious about the tomatoes. Odd Eye has only inspired three pages of the adventures of hybrid cargo/fighter ship Insomnia VII and its ragtag crew of space mercenaries. boo me off this stage as soon as possible :c


	4. Act Two: Scene 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We were just running some lines,” she says casually. “Yoohyeon’s excited to work on her scenes with Jiu.”
> 
> “Oh, me too! They have such good chemistry, you’re a really great writer, Siyeon!”
> 
> Siyeon preens while Yoohyeon looks ready to either murder her or take a dive off the stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as I continue writing this, I feel like that picture of the dog surrounded by fire, wherein I am the dog and these characters are my surroundings burning out of my control as they please, except I am the updated version screaming "this is not fine oh my god everything is on fire what the hell is wrong with me"

ACT TWO

SCENE 2

_An apocalyptic wasteland, littered with leftover rubble and potentially toxic waste from past wars. Also known as the stage during pre-preset time. The techies and stage design team take stock of the old props and flats they have to work with, as dramatist and director SIYEON enlists YOOHYEON, BORA, and HANDONG to help with blocking._

BORA, reading for JIU: Day by day, audience upon audience… my fist must remain iron, but oh this heart of mine… wherefore dost thou tremble?

HANDONG, reading for GUARD #4: _She hits a stray hammer on the floor to emulate heavy knocks._ Your Majesty, the Council awaits your presence in the throne room.

YOOHYEON: Fair Jiu, why do you sigh so? (Do I enter stage left?)

BORA, skimming for JIU: No, the spotlight comes up to reveal you’ve been with Jiu the whole time. Read, Yoo, c’mon. Now you start to walk closer to me as I monologue about my deteriorating kingdom as a metaphor for the crumbling defenses of my heart. Sad but sexy. Very Lana del Rey. Good stuff, babe.

(YOOHYEON: Huh?)

(SIYEON: Thanks, I know. Your line, Yoo.)

YOOHYEON: The kingdom pries with claws and fangs as if to tear answers from your ribcage. Jiu… all the more sorrowful that I, your loyal servant, still beseech your ear with one request, and only one. (I don’t remember this line…)

BORA, over-exaggeratedly dropping to her knees: You know I would hear your every wish. I would grant you the world if it were mine to give.

YOOHYEON: Then… I ask that you tell me how I can alleviate this burden. How I can hold this pain for you. (Hey, wait a second…)

BORA, grabbing YOOHYEON’s hands to distract her from the script: ...I cannot move under the eyes of the kingdom. I cannot breathe under their shouting voices. I long to be alone, yet still seen. I long for… for your lips to tell me all will be well. My only comfort in this invasive solitude.

YOOHYEON: ...You have no audience just yet, just now, Your Highness.

BORA: Only you.

YOOHYEON: Always. Wait, WAIT… SIYEON— 

The scene shatters as Bora dramatically tosses her copy of the newly edited script away and tries to plant smooches all over Yoohyeon’s face.

“Siyeon, you — ew, Bora, geddoff! — what is this?!”

Handong underlines the directions with her hammer. “You really do need to read, Yoohyeon. It’s a stage kiss. It says it right here.”

The anguished actor manages to shove Bora off, and rolls up her own script to weakly swat at the guilty scriptwriter, who looks anything but.

“Siyeon!” she whines.

Bora rolls her eyes. “A little homoeroticism never hurt anyone.”

“Me, it hurts me!” Yoohyeon cries. “How am I supposed to stage kiss Minji?!”

“With your lips,” Handong suggests at the same time Siyeon reads from the script, “‘tastefully, but brimming with barely restrained passion.’”

Yoohyeon appears to like neither of those answers, stepping up onto a pile of treads for emphasis as if she wasn’t selected to play Animate Tree in junior year for her relatively towering height. “I can’t believe you would betray me. I cannot believe you would stoop so low as to… to force me to put on an act like this. To make me… _kiss_ her. This is abuse of power! Premeditated manslaughter! You slipped this in knowing full well that it would kill me!”

“We get it, you’re homophobic, geeze.” Disgruntled, Bora moves to plant kisses on Siyeon’s willing cheeks instead.

Yoohyeon splutters. “I’ve _literally_ pined, for three years, after the most beautiful girl in—”

“Hey guys! Am I interrupting?”

Enter Minji, stage left but seemingly from nowhere.

Exit Yoohyeon’s soul.

Yoohyeon’s whole body manages to go completely stiff and loosely flailing at the same time. She trips over the riser under her and falls, right into Minji’s arms.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you! Are you alright?” Minji eases Yoohyeon back into standing on her own two feet, but worriedly keeps a steady hand on the small of Yoohyeon’s back. Well that she does, because the taller girl actually swoons. Everyone except a genuinely concerned Minji rolls their eyes.

“I’m alright now,” she manages through a strangled voice. Minji smiles at her, relieved and bright. Siyeon steps in before Yoohyeon outright collapses.

“We were just running some lines,” she says casually. “Yoohyeon’s excited to work on her scenes with Jiu.”

“Oh, me too! They have such good chemistry, you’re a really great writer, Siyeon!”

Siyeon preens while Yoohyeon looks ready to either murder her or take a dive off the stage.

“Theatre kids,” Handong mutters to herself with a shake of her head, as if she herself isn't one. “So dramatic.”

As if to prove her point, Yubin’s warning voice squawks from a walkie-talkie left upstage for this very purpose. “Heads up.” Her team of techies hits the deck.

“Seven up!” Gahyeon’s shout draws out, louder and perplexingly closer, until the actors glance up too late. They stare in varying amounts of shock and normalized acceptance as she hurtles down from above, using Yoohyeon as a landing cushion.

“I warned you,” the walkie-talkie says, smug. Yoohyeon makes a noise that would probably be a curse if she had any air in her lungs.

“Phase Three is a go!” is all Gahyeon manages to crow, waving happily at Minji, before the bungee cords clipped to the grab handles on her backpack reach the limit of their tension and yank her back up. With one hand Minji waves back, a bit confused but still a good sport, up at the catwalk over their heads. With the other she worriedly pats Yoohyeon’s face. Yoohyeon makes another strangled noise.

Gahyeon drops back with much more finesse than the first go, latching onto Handong like a koala bear for a moment. Handong barely even stumbles under her careful landing. Yoohyeon glares.

“Oh, and Yubin needed the hammer,” Gahyeon says, exchanging the tool in Handong’s hand for a kiss to the cheek. She shoots back up and easily lands back beside Yubin amongst the lights.

“What’s phase three?” Minji wonders.

“The uh… third and final part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga. Siyeon here really loves Spiderman, ha ha ha! Not as much as she loves me, of course. Right? Oh, no, suddenly we uh, have to go… talk out my jealousy! Because people in a healthy, communicative relationship — or people who _want_ to be in one — should _talk_ to each other about their _feelings_ , ha ha—”

Siyeon sweeps Bora away before she can do any more damage. Handong, not even bothering with an excuse after that display, half-heartedly gasps and looks at an invisible wristwatch before walking away to join Yubin and Gahyeon. Minji and Yoohyeon are left blinking after them.

“Your friends seem very…”

“Dangerous,” Yoohyeon offers.

“I was going to say ‘fun’,” Minji feigns innocence, breaking into a giggle at Yoohyeon’s snort of disbelief. She leans over to pick up Bora’s neglected copy of the edited script. “What scene were you guys running? I can finish it with you, if you’d like.”

“Heads up!”

The techies drop. Now aware, Yoohyeon cowers to the stage floor as well, not ready to be tackled by Gahyeon and her one-ton backpack again.

“Thanks Soojin!”

She carefully peeks through her fingers to watch Gahyeon steal a screwdriver from another classmate near the pit. She sighs with relief and moves her hands, only to come face-to-face with Minji’s own pair of protective ones hovering over her head.

Minji waits until Gahyeon is secured to the catwalk again before sheepishly withdrawing. “I think you’ve been injured in front of me far too many times,” she says, the corner of her lips tugging upwards wryly, teasingly, attractively, and oh no—

“I think you’re right,” Yoohyeon agrees with a weak laugh, the stage kiss directions wrinkled in her grasp, knowing this is _not_ going to be fun at all.

//

Phase One: Get Siyeon’s script chosen for this semester’s play. Phase Two: Get everyone to vote for Yoohyeon.

Phase One-point-five, added after a major flaw in the plan was made apparent: Get Yoohyeon to audition so there is actually a Yoohyeon to vote for. Back to Phase Two.

Phase Three: Subtly nudge Yoohyeon and Minji together.

And then amended with the acknowledgment of this particular cast of characters,

Phase Three: Shove Yoohyeon and Minji together. Dramatics triumph over subtlety any day, no matter what Sera says about conveying emotions and the importance of small gestures. Everyone knows any decent plot reaches an epic climax before the falling action and resolution, but Yoohyeon seems determined to remain dwelling in the conflict and exposition found in the very beginning of a story.

“You’re literally the main character, Yoohyeon,” Siyeon shouts in frustration one Friday evening after witnessing the way Yoohyeon turned heel at the flustering sight of Minji choreographing a sword-fight scene with Jackson.

As pre-planning commences over the next couple of weeks, Yoohyeon’s friends juggle their academic responsibilities, their duties to the theatre club, and their biggest obligation as matchmakers. And as any good intellectual montage should do, they hope that the force of their efforts, combined with the assured presence of typical sapphic yearning, will evoke a tertium quid of… _something_.

They’ve got a good month and a half to build up healthy tension between their two leads.

“I refuse to settle for a slow-burn,” Handong sniffs. From the catwalk, the two math whizzes nod in agreement, Gahyeon holding up a bucket of blue flowers and Yubin flicking on a large butane torch. Bora cheers. Siyeon gives a thumbs up. Some distance away in her office, Sera elects to ignore the chill that runs down her spine.

//

Week 1:

Jackson gets too busy with fencing tournaments to help out after school much, so Yubin takes over his job as sword-handling mentor while Gahyeon handles the tech.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Yoohyeon asks, taking a cautious step forwards as her long-time friend gets dangerously close to Minji’s guts with a prop rapier.

Yubin pauses mid-jab to raise an eyebrow back at her. “I did kendo for five years. You blindly swung a plasma staff at Minji’s face.”

Yoohyeon blanches, because it’s true, and oh god, they really expect her of all people to wield not only her voice but a _sword_ with confidence.

“That’s alright, I trust you,” says Minji, graciously accepting the fake weapon from Yubin and weighing it in her pretty hands. She says it to the both of them, but her smile is directed assuringly at Yoohyeon.

Yoohyeon freezes, grip on her own prop sword gone limp.

“Just like that. Give it a try; I’ll have to make some changes based on your costumes later, but the important part is your intent anyway.” Yubin steps to the side with a nod.

Yoohyeon has zero time to react before Minji’s gaze darkens with ferocity, and suddenly her sword is knocked out of her grasp and Minji has her wrist pinned behind her back as the forte of her blade presses lightly against the side of Yoohyeon’s neck. That pretty, deadly hand rests inches under Yoohyeon’s wide eyes.

“Was that okay?” Minji asks, voice all too breezy and close to Yoohyeon’s ear.

“Perfect,” Yubin says with a smug clap. “Let’s try it once more, but Yoohyeon, try to put up _some_ resistance this time.”

Yoohyeon can’t be sure which is more dangerous to her wellbeing: her friends, or Minji.

Week 2:

Both. The answer is both.

Handong, a much better liar than Bora, gets bored with watching stagehands Aisha and Yeojin duke it out over a shade of paint, and hauls Minji and Yoohyeon away by the scruffs of their coincidentally matching hoodies.

She plops them down on the obligatory eyesore of a couch in the dressing room and gives them both a once-over.

“Cute,” she says, in regards to their black and white casualwear, as well as the way they look up almost contritely at her with matching wide-eyed expressions, “but they come off.”

“Huh?!”

Handong _tsks_ once, enough to shut Yoohyeon’s gaping mouth. “Do you know how long it’ll take me to make a bouffant worthy of Minji’s beauty? I need your measurements.” She doesn’t give them pause to process and protest, snapping open a roll of measuring tape. “Yesterday, please!”

They scramble to obey. With their hoodies draped over Handong’s arm and shirts scrunched up to give accurate measurements of their waists, suddenly the ugly couch is the most entrancing thing in the room. Handong rolls her eyes as she handles Yoohyeon first, scribbling her numbers down on a scrap of paper before initiating a dramatic pause.

“Wow. I knew you were tall, but your proportions are model-worthy, Yoo.” Sweetly, innocently, she looks up to regard her with appreciation, and then turns to Minji. “Minji, don’t you think Yoohyeon could be a model?”

Minji nods and flashes that bright smile of hers, but something about it looks oddly strained. “Of course. She’ll rock whatever beautiful creation you put her in.”

Interesting.

Because Handong is a superb actor, her pen suddenly runs out of ink. “Oh, let me go get another pen. I’ll be right back.” She shoves the yellow measuring tape into Yoohyeon’s bewildered, sweaty hands, but keeps their hoodies. “Help me out and take Minji’s measurements, yeah?”

Yoohyeon chokes. Handong smirks.

“Cute,” she mutters to herself again once the dressing room door is shut behind her, at the way both of their faces had flushed the exact same shade of pink. She makes a mental note to tweak the makeup palettes she has selected to go alongside the costumes she already has mostly laid out.

Oh so unfortunately, she gets side-tracked assisting Gahyeon in tugging an entire fire extinguisher from her backpack. By the time she dawdles back to the dressing room with a pink gel pen in hand, the two main actors are sitting stiffly on opposite ends of the couch with the measuring tape rolled up neatly between them like it’s a poisonous spider.

Handong clicks her new pen and frowns. “Well?”

There is a tense pause, in which Handong gets ready to sigh in disappointment.

Then, face an even darker shade of red, Yoohyeon mumbles some numbers. The costume designer scribbles them down, masking her delight by tossing them their hoodies as a reward. They scramble to put them on, neither realizing she threw them the wrong one.

“Thanks for your hard work, Handong,” Minji says, genuine as ever, as they get up to return to the shouting and alarming smell of smoke out on stage.

“Yeah, _thanks_ , Dongie,” Yoohyeon says through gritted teeth. She tugs her hood up and tightens the drawstrings to hide her flushed face, and then she breathes in to add another scandalized remark out of earshot of Minji. Her eyes widen.

Handong relishes in the way Yoohyeon trips over the dressing room threshold in realization.

“No, thank _you_ ,” Handong simpers, clicking her pen with satisfaction.

Week 3:

By now Yoohyeon knows her friends are up to something. If only she knew the extent to which they have painstakingly plotted, or the extent to which they are all fed up with her romantic ineptitude, maybe she wouldn’t have made the poor decision to confront them about it. She stomps up to the five of them lounging in the green room with a “What exactly are you trying to pull with Minji? I can’t believe—” and is almost immediately forced on the defensive.

“What _I_ can’t believe is how much of a _useless_ gay you are. Seriously, Yoo, you almost killed her with a lightsword in auditions, and now you can’t even read lines with her without blushing! I wrote this as a melodrama, not a tragedy!”

“It’s insulting to sapphics everywhere. Pining is for trees. Break the stereotype.”

“Just confess.”

“Roses are red, violets are blue… Gahyeonie thinks you’re an idiot too.”

“Babe, can I use the baseball bat? Guys, can I _please_ use the baseball bat?”

Yoohyeon shrinks against the door, ensuring it is shut tight to curious ears before whining, “I can’t just… confess!”

Handong arches a brow. “And why not?”

Yoohyeon flounders for a bit under their unimpressed gazes before coming up with a valid reason. “What if she doesn’t even like girls?” She crosses her arms. Checkmate.

Bora, however, has no interest in board games. She steps up to the plate for this one, and Yoohyeon flinches as she stomps over to her, even if she doesn’t have the baseball bat in hand. In one grand movement she pushes Yoohyeon aside, flings open the green room door, surveys the groups of students milling about the area, and high-knees it a short distance away with a drawn out, “Heeeey, Minji! Over here!”

Yoohyeon moves to dash after her and drag her back, but Yubin calmly points at her shoelaces.

“There’s a spider on your foot.”

Yoohyeon slips on non-slip carpet and faceplants on the floor. She turns onto her back with a dramatic groan, glaring blurrily around the room, and hopes her ex-friends see the betrayed hurt in her watery eyes.

Bora’s exuberant voice grows louder as she steers Minji closer to the green room, and Yoohyeon manages to blink past the throbbing in her nose just in time to focus on their conversation as they pass by.

“...You’re a thespian? Oh! My mistake; I thought you said _lesbian_ ,” Bora brays out a terribly obvious laugh, to which Minji blinks in confusion.

“We’ve been in theatre together since freshman year? And you got us matching ‘bi-sexy’ pins when we did Twelfth Night together?”

“Oh yeeeaaah, ha ha, that’s riiiiiight. I forgot you totally, definitely like guys _and girls_.” Bora stares directly at Yoohyeon.

Minji nods slowly in affirmation, not quite understanding Bora’s weird behavior but too nice not to entertain her. Her eyes follow her castmate’s down and widen when they land on the lump on the floor.

“Yoohyeon? Are you alright?”

Honey-blonde hair tied up in a messy bun. Paint speckled on denim overalls from when she mediated and finally brought an end to the ongoing battle between the tallest and the smallest members of the club. Other stagehands calling her over, clambering to get her opinion on a set.

So different from the first time they met, but the warmth in her worried eyes is still the same. Yoohyeon lets her mind swim in deja vu for a moment before realizing Minji asked her a question.

“Yeah, yeah!” She flops messy bangs out of her face and waves her away best she can upside-down. “Just some rugburn, I’ll be fine!”

Minji hesitates as if to move closer, but looks back as the shouts of her name grow more in number. She heeds their call, but not without a smile that Yoohyeon would call exasperated, and what the others recognize as fond.

“If you say so. Take care of her for me?” She looks around at her friends and then settles on Yoohyeon’s flushed cheeks with concern. “I feel like we meet like this far too often. No concussions this time, okay?”

Yoohyeon gives a feeble thumbs up. She drops it with a groan once Minji is out of earshot.

At least her friends wait until the door is closed again before they start the roasting.

“Rugburn? More like _heartburn_ ,” Bora says, giving herself her own accompanying airhorn noises.

“Isn't that indigestion?” Siyeon points out.

Yubin deadpans: “Yeah, ‘cause Yoohyeon ate shit just now.”

Gahyeon pulls an actual airhorn out of her backpack. Yoohyeon’s subsequent wail of anguish is drowned out.

“Now that’s what I call a tragedy,” Handong says as Yoohyeon fake-sobs on the floor. She sighs. “Pitiful.”

Week 4:

Siyeon struts down the line of cast members with her hands tucked neatly behind her back. They stand almost at attention, more nervous under her scrutiny than Sera’s usual kind and constructive style of directing.

In a fit of manic inspiration, as is the case with all creative geniuses, Handong had created all of the base costumes for the entire cast in two sleepless back-to-back nights. Gahyeon tugs an incredibly large, downy blanket from her pack, and tucks them both into a nap on the lofted nook of the techie room. Yubin sets aside some popcorn for them later as she watches the show from the catwalk.

These are Siyeon’s characters come to life, and she wants everything to be _perfect_. She starts with the minor roles at one end of the lineup. They cower under her intense stare.

“Hm, you, not bad. You, shoulders up — you’re a guard, not a mouse; I expect you to stand like one. Handservant… we’ll get you a mauve towel, periwinkle doesn’t work. You — what happened to your cufflinks? Am I a joke to you? I know for a fact Dongie sewed mock ones in…”

Yubin chews contentedly as she pans a profile spot over one poor cast member who has fainted out of terror.

Siyeon eventually pads over to the main cast, and pauses for a long, tense moment in front of Bora.

“Sua…”

Bora cocks her head, challenging.

Siyeon melts into a proud, dopey grin. “You look breathtaking, baby.”

Yubin spits out a kernel and averts the light from another Bora-induced display of homosensual improv.

Eventually Siyeon clears her throat and moves on to the last two characters.

“Minji,” she nods approvingly, “we still have to get you that flower crown for the last scene, but otherwise: perfect, as always.”

Yoohyeon almost lets down her guard at the way Minji, in her ethereal, rose-colored dress, beams appreciatively at Siyeon’s praise. And then Siyeon stops in front of her.

“Yoohyeon…” Her eyes narrow. Yoohyeon rests her hand reflexively on the hilt of her prop sword, thankful the weapon is a fixed part of her own costume.

“...you look _exactly_ how I envisioned,” she steps back, satisfied. Yoohyeon exhales. Siyeon grins at her, but then pauses. “Except… your hair. It needs to be silver.”

And really, even with a sword at her hip, Yoohyeon is in no position to challenge the director at her most zealous state, even though she’s heard Siyeon’s unironic baby noises before.

She finds herself at the whims of Gahyeon, who apparently is also a licensed hairdresser, even though she’s never seen her once with dyed hair.

“Are _you_ sure you know what you’re doing?” Yoohyeon has to ask.

“Of course I know what I’m doing,” Gahyeon says, giving her scalp one more brush of some scalding kind of paint, before heading to the dressing room door. “I’m leaving. I promised to give Dongie something earlier.”

Yoohyeon can’t even protest at the fact that she’s being abandoned and betrayed yet again. “Don’t you need your backpack for that?” Scared to move her head too much lest all her hair fall out, she kicks towards the behemoth of a shell she’s honestly never seen Gahyeon without.

The younger girl looks at her with undue wisdom in her solemn gaze. “The most necessary things aren’t always tangible; the love we give is felt, not seen. C’mon, Yoo, haven’t you learned anything from your poetry analyses? They get me A’s, so I assume they mean something.”

Yoohyeon stares at her in the reflection of her assigned vanity mirror.

“...I’m kidding. I’m going to give her cuddles.” Gahyeon breaks with a cheerful, innocent peace sign, and skips off, calling behind her, “Don’t worry, I’ll send someone to check up on you in two hours!”

“I have to sit like this for two hours?!”

She’s answered with nothing but the crinkle of all the foil in her hair.

She glances at the analog clock on the wall with a sigh, and begins to recite her lines in her head for something to do. It doesn’t take long for the stress of the past month to catch up to her, though, now that she has time to just sit alone, and exhaustion soon seeps into her bones. As her eyelids grow heavy, she can only pray that her hair is still more or less intact by the time Gahyeon comes back to wake her up.

But it’s not Gahyeon who does.

She winces at the crick in her neck and focuses blearily on the clock. Still an hour to go. Then she focuses on the sound that woke her, and stares, confused, at the reflection of familiar blonde hair and an even more familiar hoodie curled up on the couch behind her.

It’s Minji. Script in one hand, phone alarm counting down the remaining hour in the other. She must have fallen asleep rehearsing her lines, too, if the glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose say anything. It was her snores, light rumbling that could almost be considered kitten purrs, that roused Yoohyeon. If Yoohyeon is tired, she can’t imagine how Minji feels, constantly pulled aside to help the rest of the club with their dramatics, and still making time for other friends outside of theatre, on top of all other schoolwork, too.

And still going out of her way to check up on Yoohyeon. Still sticking around even though Yoohyeon was knocked out and probably drooling with hopefully-not-Nair matting her hair to her face.

Quietly, and with as little head-movement as possible, Yoohyeon unfolds her stiff limbs, tip-toes across the room, and carefully saves Minji’s glasses from being crushed into tufts of cushion stuffing. She holds her breath as Minji’s nose crinkles once, bunny-like and all too adorable, and all while she eases the script and phone from her hands and neatly places them onto the counter in front of Minji’s usual assigned vanity.

She exhales in relief once she sinks back into her chair. She’s not alone in this space anymore, but a new kind of warmth fills her heart at the notion, one that relaxes the tension in her body and makes the exhaustion a little less heavy. It’s that thing about Minji — the way her presence makes Yoohyeon feel so out of her element yet so okay with it — that makes it easy for Minji’s even breaths to lull her back to sleep.

It makes it easy to exchange sleepy smiles with her when the phone alarm goes off and startles them from their naps. It makes it easy to agree to Minji’s yawning suggestion that she help Yoohyeon with her hair, since Gahyeon is unpredictable and easily side-tracked and Handong will be dead to the world for at least another three hours.

It almost makes it easy to hear Minji’s breathless, “Wow, Yoohyeon, you look stunning,” when she finally shakes out her new silvery hair, and to believe the earnestness in her voice isn't just Minji being nice.

It almost, _almost_ makes it easy for Yoohyeon to blurt out her feelings for how they burst from within her chest, when Minji links their arms together for post-nap balance and walks to let them out of the empty auditorium with her key; her soft, happy humming the only thing breaking their comfortable silence.

Almost.

“I’ll see you next week?” Minji offers as a soft farewell, one pinky finger pushing up her glasses, the other unconsciously hooked around Yoohyeon’s.

It’s almost easy, and Yoohyeon can’t bring herself to ruin that with her awkwardness.

“Yeah,” she says instead, “see you soon. Hopefully not from a concussed sprawl on the floor.”

The way Minji laughs and hugs her goodbye is far from dangerous.

The way Yoohyeon’s heart flips definitely is.

Week 5:

“It’s genius, if unethical, I’ll give you that.”

“And foolproof. The only other person I know of who can pick locks at this school is Tzuyu, and she avoids the theatre department like the plague.”

“Understandable; also, hell yeah! It’s so painfully cliche, it has to work for them!”

“And can also get us arrested for false imprisonment, and possibly murder, since Yoohyeon’s nerves will probably send her into cardiac arrest,” Siyeon points out, exasperatedly throwing her script notes in the air. “Gahyeon, you really woke up today and just chose violence?”

Gahyeon easily snatches the papers as they flutter down, and neatly hands them back to the director on one run of the bungee cords. She answers her rhetorical question on the next touch-down.

“No, I woke up today, and just chose to lock Minji and Yoohyeon in the techie room together until they resolve their romantic tension.”

She tosses her packed keyring up, and times her next fall to catch it before it hits the stage. Handong applauds. From above, Yubin continues to test the light rigs, tracking Gahyeon’s trajectory with a follow spot. Siyeon’s silhouette paces worriedly under the floodlights.

“They’ll be fine, babe,” Bora reassures her. “There’s no way Yoo can sustain an injury more painful or embarrassing than the You & I scarf/staff incident. I would know. I caused it.”

“There’s also no way she can sustain a casual conversation with Minji for that long without keeling over in a panic,” Handong sighs. Everyone grimaces in reluctant agreement. “Should we let them out soon?”

There is a moment of panicked deja vu for four of them as a door creaks open some distance away, and as unfamiliar footsteps approach from backstage. A silver head of hair peeks out from behind the curtains, followed by a golden one.

“Oh, hi guys! We didn’t think anyone was still here!” Minji says, her eyes a bit dazed under the floodlights. She finds her glasses and sets them back on her face with one hand.

“Yeah, we got stuck in the techie room, somehow,” Yoohyeon glares, but there’s something even weaker about her typical fake ire right now. Handong examines her face and its pink tinge, the same shade as her lip tint today. She’s unable to identify why it looks different. She chalks it off to the new hair color, and makes another mental note to update the costume makeup palettes.

“Oh, that’s awful,” Gahyeon gasps dramatically on a bungee down, catching her keyring with her foot. “How did you get out?”

“Minji knows how to pick locks,” Yoohyeon says triumphantly, using one hand to surreptitiously flip Gahyeon off from around the curtain. Minji rubs her neck in a sheepish imitation of someone familiar.

Yubin walkies down, suspicious. “What were you doing that whole time, then?”

“Running lines,” comes Yoohyeon’s measured response.

“That _whole_ time?” Bora repeats.

Yoohyeon’s glare moves to her. “We went through the entire script. With blocking. Choreography. Et cetera.”

Bora narrows her eyes. “The _entire_ script?”

“The entire script,” Yoohyeon affirms. There is a tense silence as Bora and Yoohyeon glower at each other. Then Bora scoffs, and the five exchange a dismissal around their collective brain cell: Yoohyeon is far too composed — at least, as typically as she can be around Minji. There’s no way they did an entire polishing rehearsal. There’s no way they practiced the stage kiss.

“I know you hear this all the time, but you really are such a talented writer, Siyeon. I’ve never been more excited to be part of a play before,” Minji says, diffusing the atmosphere easily with a warm smile around the stage and up to the lights. “Thanks for your incredible effort! I can’t wait to tell this story with you all!” She waves cheerfully at them with her free hand, and the others can’t help but wave back. Yoohyeon slices her thumb threateningly over her neck when Minji turns back to the wings. At a gentle tug, she turns and quickly follows before her friends can retaliate.

They wait to hear the heavy backstage doors swing shut behind them. Four of them let out a groan.

“Next week, then,” Bora sighs.

“We have skirmishes after school every day,” Gahyeon reminds her, successfully catching the keyring on her other foot this jump.

“And we have to prep for the national tournament.” Yubin shuts off the follow spot and her walkie talkie, and makes to rejoin the others below.

“And I will be sleeping, unless you need changes to the costumes,” Handong says decidedly. She waves a hand in front of Siyeon’s frozen face when she gets no response. “...I will take that as a no.”

“They were holding hands.” Siyeon sounds as if she’s seen a ghost, even though according to Gahyeon the auditorium is blessedly phantom-free.

“Okay… Gahyeon holds hands with everyone,” Bora reminds her slowly.

But Siyeon is the perceptive mastermind of this plot. She knows her characters well.

One minute detail was off about the two leads.

“...And only Minji was wearing lipstick this morning.”

A beat.

Two.

Gahyeon drops her keys on her toe. Handong’s jaw goes slack. Bora begins to screech just as Yubin jerks and accidentally hits a switch.

_Blackout._

_Elsewhere, nearer to the haunted side of campus, two uninvolved girls belt out the same tune that recently graced an almost empty auditorium in the form of soft, contented humming._

YERI & SOOYOUNG: Allllll I wanna dooo… is be with you, be with youuuu…!

_End scene._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, dropping down from the catwalk into the audience like a piñata: spare tomato?


	5. Act Two: Scene 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She shifts her glasses higher, makes eye contact with the girl sitting awkwardly a few paces away, and smiles.
> 
> It’s the smallest of things, but as Minji will learn, sometimes that’s all it takes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan to write this chapter at all. I accidentally copy-and-pasted the beginning of Act 1, noted down the subsequent 4AM idea I thought was brilliant, and later woke up to read "love is 4 walls and i'm gonna breeaaaak the[m hehe minji go deja vuuuwall"
> 
> and then I didn't plan to write nearly 7k words without yet reaching an end, so here's half of this wholly unsolicited story-within-a-story-within-a story... within-a-story. thank you endlessly for such kind comments, especially to the people who dm'd me such sweet (and hilarious) messages! projecting my inner insufficiencies: the existence of this chapter is entirely your fault :p

~~ACT TWO~~

~~SCENE 3~~

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

_The auditorium. The room is dark and silent. The main spotlight is switched on. JIU stands downstage in round glasses, script in hand, smile small. NARRATOR 1 enters cloaked from stage left. MINJI slowly begins to walk forwards, smile growing with each step, as NARRATOR 1 speaks._

NARRATOR 1: The most tragic of stories are ones of bastardized motifs.

_NARRATOR 2 enters cloaked from stage right._

NARRATOR 2: The most comedic of stories are ones of — well. As haphazardly executed as it is, this play-within-a-play _is_ called Deja Vu.

NARRATOR 1: In Yoohyeon’s story, a girl falls for a girl, and does nothing about it for three years.

NARRATOR 2: In Minji’s adaptation, a girl falls for a girl, and… also does nothing about it for three years.

_JIU reaches the edge of the stage and sits, smile now sheepish._

NARRATOR 1: Some will call it tragic. Some will call it comedic.

NARRATOR 2: This is a story of memory and perception, of figurative clarity and literal shortsightedness.

NARRATOR 1: This is a story of timing, and of falling.

NARRATOR 1 & 2: This… is Minji’s perspective.

_Lights down. Exit JIU._

_Enter MINJI, freshman year._

//

Wide hallways. White knuckles clutching a shiny new bookbag. Scuffed sneakers, toecaps pointed inwards.

Minji will come to be described as a charismatic bunny by those who call her a friend, but that hasn’t happened yet. The charisma will come soon, as will the friends. At a later time, the bunny descriptor will be because Minji is cute and fluffy and has boundless energy when it comes to endearing herself to others, but for now, it is because she is absolutely _petrified_ by her surroundings.

High school is different from homeschool. High school has people. People are _loud_.

But what really scares her, though, is that it’s not pure chaos that pushes students from class to class in streams that more resemble white water rapids. It’s scary because it’s calculated. There are inside jokes from middle school, retellings of summer vacation escapades, plans to join extracurriculars of matching interests; all this noise is everyone communicating where they fit in.

Everyone but Minji.

The first three weeks of freshman year are painful. Minji tries to whisper her name when people ask for it, but finds herself dreading even that because what immediately follows is a whole barrage of curious questions that are only meant to gauge where she fits in.

Which she can’t possibly know. It’s painful. She wants to cry.

She is hiding behind her locker door trying not to do just that, not quite able to care that she is late to class because the hallways are still wide but at least now they’re empty, when it happens.

Pounding footsteps. A _whoa!_ as unbalanced feet skid through a mostly successful drift around the corner. Continuing momentum. Still continuing.

Minji steps back just in time.

There are three noises that sound off in quick succession: The bang of a skull colliding with steel, the slam of Minji’s locker door shut, and the sharp, terrified gasp that Minji lets out as a body hits the floor.

The difference, though, is that as she stares down at the girl’s undignified, unmoving sprawl, she realizes she isn't terrified _of_ her and whatever anger she might have for Minji’s obstructing locker door. She is terrified _for_ her.

Scuffed sneakers hesitate. Shuffle closer. Heels tuck together as she crouches and whispers, “A-are you alright?”

The girl comes to with unfocused, confused eyes. They land on Minji, and blink once, slowly.

“Whoa,” she repeats, like she just skid around a corner again, and Minji begins to worry about short term memory loss.

The girl sort of just stares in a stupor for a long moment, before a loose, goofy grin spreads across her face, and she announces:

“Yeah, ‘m alright!”

Later, Yoohyeon will take the small role of Talking Puppy for their sophomore year winter play, fitting because she is loyal and eager and easily excitable. For now, it is fitting because she’s cute.

And also, decidedly not alright.

Minji pushes her glasses up to better see the rapidly swelling lump on the girl’s forehead. “You… you should go to the nurse’s office.”

“Naaah, ‘s all good!” The girl tries to come to a casual stand, shaking her head to prove she is in fact alright, and Minji has to rush forward to catch her as she teeters. Her own tears are an afterthought now; that collision took the prize of most painful thing Minji has ever seen, and yet the girl isn't crying. It’s admirable. And also worrying.

“You… we’re gonna go to the nurse,” Minji insists, voice just the slightest bit stronger.

So they go. And then they stop, right in front of the sign-up sheets for the theatre club. And then Minji’s whole world changes.

“...I’m not a star.”

“Yeah, you are.”

The girl has her arm slung over Minji’s shoulders like she’s known her for years, and the way her entire face lights up in response to Minji’s shy smile is the most pure, ulterior motive-less thing she’s seen since school started, or maybe ever.

 _Y Oo hyeo n!_ is what the girl’s lagging motor skills manage to scribble on the sign-up sheet.

“I’m Yoohyeon, and I gave myself a concussion last week!” is how Yoohyeon introduces herself to the circle of a couple dozen future theatre nerds a week later. Her friend, a short-haired girl who has already mastered the art of judgmental looks as barely-a-teenager, elbows her for sounding far too enthusiastic about her fun fact. Yoohyeon rubs sheepishly at the back of her neck. Her embarrassment quickly melts into attentiveness as the next three students introduce themselves.

“I’m Handong. I’m Chinese.”

“...Alrighty. The name’s Siyeon. I’m part of a heavy metal band. I also once put a man in the hospital.”

“Hey, you’re a cutie! You can call me babe. To everyone else—”

“—I’m not cute, I’m _badass_ —”

“—my name is Bora. And my fun fact is that I’m — what was your name? Siyeon? — Siyeon’s future girlfriend.”

“That doesn’t sound like a fun fact at all—”

From across the circle, Minji watches Yoohyeon’s reaction to the loudness. She’s not overwhelmed by it. If anything, she seems to take in all these people with a focused curiosity, like it doesn’t matter where they fit in because they all have a name and they all introduce themselves in their own unique voice and that makes them stars in her eyes already.

Comically raised eyebrows. A sympathetic pout. Fidgety, clasped hands. All wholly uncalculated; Yoohyeon wears feelings so candidly on her face and in her body language it almost makes them tangible. Familiar, like an arm slung over one shoulder and a grin pressed into the other.

Minji’s turn comes. She has never felt smaller. But with all eyes on her, somehow she only feels Yoohyeon’s earnest ones, and Minji can’t possibly be scared of such pure honesty. The shy girl’s voice will soon become bathed in confidence and warmth, but for now, she just manages to make it louder than a whisper, if only to make sure Yoohyeon can hear her from across the circle.

“I’m Minji, and… I like puppies.”

Yoohyeon ardently mouths her name to herself, like she is taking extra care to commit it to memory in spite of her presumably still woozy head. When she realizes Minji is watching her lips move curiously, she flushes, looking away and rubbing her neck. Self-conscious? Minji almost can’t fathom it, because there’s nothing someone like Yoohyeon has to be embarrassed for.

The club orientation ends with a suggestion to mingle and get to know each other. Yoohyeon is pulled along in the gravity of those closest to her, and shrieks of laughter soon fill that side of the room, Yoohyeon clutching onto her friend Yubin for support as she doubles over. Minji looks over to her own side. Awkward eye contact, feigned interest in phones, polite conversation starters. Hoping to reach that easy laughter like the other cluster.

And she looks at these people, her first classmates, and realizes that maybe she doesn’t have to be scared of them. That maybe all everyone wants is someone to lean on in wide halls and wider futures. And that maybe all that is necessary to start is a name and a voice.

She shifts her glasses higher, makes eye contact with the girl sitting awkwardly a few paces away, and smiles.

It’s the smallest of things, but as Minji will learn, sometimes that’s all it takes.

The girl scoots over gratefully. “Hi, I’m Seola…”

Seola is her first friend in high school. She won’t be the last, not by far, but she will be the first to figure out Minji’s crush, even before Minji does.

But for now: Yoohyeon and Minji start on opposite sides of the auditorium, and take their first — intrepidly idiosyncratic, yet painfully parallel — steps across the stage.

//

Enter Minji, sophomore year, as the rising talk of the town. If she found her voice as a freshman, she is learning to use it this year. And people are listening.

And talking.

“Minji… is flawless.”

“She’s had two leading roles and a standing ovation.”

“I hear her lead is ensured for the next play too.”

“I hear she got scouted for a reality tv show. By YG.”

“Her favorite play is ‘As You Like It’.”

“One time, she met Dreamcatcher on a plane, and they told her she was pretty.”

“One time, she ripped off a Mean Girls riff. It was awesome.”

Now, while some of the gossip might be completely baseless (her favorite play isn't ‘As You Like It’, it’s ‘Twelfth Night’) and while some of it might have hints of truth (she turned down YG in a heartbeat), the only fact about Minji that really matters to the trajectory of her relationship with Yoohyeon — or the lack thereof — is that she is still _shy._

And incredibly nearsighted.

A combination that means she doesn’t go looking for people. People have been coming up to her. And it’d be rude to squint over their shoulders looking for something — someone — else.

Far, far later, it will be nearly comical looking back at how their roles manage to constantly flip so that they never quite intersect; sophomore year is a lot of Yoohyeon looking at an unaware Minji, and junior year will be a lot of Minji looking at an oblivious Yoohyeon. Comical, maybe; or tragic. Now: Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

Minji’s eyesight is not.

That was her secret for all of freshman year: to gain a boost of confidence in front of expectant, judging eyes, all she had to do was wear glasses instead of lenses that day, and then tuck the wire frames away. Faces became fuzzy, and acting like someone else became easier.

Sophomore year presents a new problem: acting like herself.

Because Minji, once she became accustomed to their loudness, realized she actually quite likes people. She likes hearing their unique names and voices, likes laughing with people about unbearable teachers and the haunted part of school, likes moving with all the jostling limbs that aren’t finished growing yet and still fit within themselves even if they don’t fit in anywhere in particular. She likes being _with_ people. But everyone now seems to have thrown her under a solo spotlight and are intent on keeping her there, lonely on a pedestal, while they watch fascinated from the audience.

People approach her, and she smiles, open. They take that as an invitation to prod at her set backgrounds and costume stitching and the rest of her perceived persona as _the acting prodigy, that super pretty sophomore, the one sitting over there; what’s her name again…?_

“You know what your problem is?”

Minji, facing the wall in the farthest corner table in the library, looks up from her textbook with a polite smile despite the antagonizing introduction. It turns into a real one and a small sigh of relief as Seola slides into the chair across from her with an indignant glare.

“Hello to you too. And I’m sorry, I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow!”

Minji apologizes for stealing Seola’s after-school snack, but just as she doesn’t mind being on the receiving end of Seola’s ire, she knows she doesn’t have to actually worry — because they are friends, not people who ask invasive questions to sate their curiosity and then leave. She likes people, but this isn't the kind of boldness she craves. She can hear whispers behind her from between bookshelves and over nearby tables. She’d like to think they’re just about the chemistry test tomorrow.

“That,” Seola snaps her fingers and points at her: “That is exactly your problem. No, not your outrageously large appetite — or your absolutely unfair metabolism to support it — your problem, Minji, is that you’re just too damn _sweet._ ” The way she levels her sweeping glare again over Minji’s head is indication enough that the whispers aren’t all about lone electron pairs.

Minji frowns, confused. “Is… that a bad thing?”

“It is when it means you entertain every gossiping bozo who just wants to brag that they’ve talked to The Hottie Who Got Scouted by YG. Seriously, sometime soon some entitled, fake douche is gonna come along and ask you out, and you’re gonna be too nice to say no to him!”

“Or her,” Minji adds absentmindedly, shifting her glasses so she can read a particularly cramped section of her notes.

“Or her,” Seola corrects her statement, and then sighs long and heavy. “Great, I have to fend off double the suitors who don’t even care enough to know your name!”

Minji takes her glasses off and sets them down so she doesn’t have to see the look of sympathy and worry on her friend’s face. As she highlights something about yttrium hydride, the blurry memory of lips determinedly shaping her name like it was something too precious to forget flashes through her head.

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Minji pauses, and innocently but over-exaggeratedly flips a page and sing-songs, “...Just the chemistry review packet. I’m almost done.”

Seola groans and reluctantly takes out her study material to catch up, but not without one last sharp glare around the library at all of the nosy faces perpetually looking their way. She pauses on one face in particular, and her challenging eyebrow raise quickly swaps for fingers steepled in intrigue.

Yoohyeon doesn’t see, because she is too busy casting concerned glances at Minji and irritated ones at their gossiping classmates, literature assignment slightly crumpled in her distracted grasp.

Minji doesn’t see, because she can’t.

A tragedy in two acts. Sophomore year goes like this.

//

Then junior year arrives.

And Minji can’t stop looking.

And it’s not because Yoohyeon’s late growth spurt towards the end of freshman year has balanced out, even if she herself hasn’t, and seen her from lanky to slender. It’s not because of her bouts of almost reckless, dramatic confidence that rival some of sophomore Gahyeon’s chaotic antics, allegedly brought on because of a harrowing experience courtesy of Bora & Co. over the summer that erased her rational fear of death. No; it’s not just that, because Yoohyeon also walked the halls for a week in an unflattering egg costume, a lost bet to Yubin, and because Yoohyeon still acts out main character monologues in the wings when she thinks the auditorium is completely empty, a disheartened sigh to herself.

Minji sees those too. She can’t stop looking either way.

So maybe it is all that, plus the recognition of wants that plague a pool of barely self-aware youth, each the star of their own coming-of-age film. Life is hard. Learning is hard. Everyone just wants to be happy.

Minji wants everyone to be happy, too.

Guiding freshmen to their classes. Helping organize the hurricane of an art supply room. Raising funds for sorely needed sports equipment upgrades. Aiding and abetting an exorcism, in the weird school-wide twist of events that was Siyeon asking Bora to be her girlfriend. Once Minji sidestepped her shyness enough to go to others first, she was able to set expected parameters in which she could just be herself, both under the spotlight and in reality. People became accustomed to her very human, very normal, very kind self; by the end of last year and beginning of this year, Minji has made many good, genuine friends, and the rest of the school smiles back at her instead of worshipping her like some bizarre idol.

Her brightness, her energy, her smile: these things help make people happy, so she does her best to keep them up at all times. And in the rare moments in between, when she has time to just sit and observe everyone, she sees Yoohyeon. She’s never really stopped looking for her, after they turned to their sides of the auditorium that first theatre club day, like the cheerful tune of an earworm stuck in her head; like flashes of her favorite color flowers on the side of the road. It occurs to her that she hasn’t gotten the chance to thank her.

She sees her: Exaggerated movements to make the painstaking processes of stage set-up and blocking less of a chore and more of a game. Soft words of encouragement quickly followed by shouts of vigor and hype to drag new members into the welcoming fold of the club. Laughter that bursts out of her all at once like she can’t contain it, like she startles herself with the force of her own gaiety, like she is still the most honest person Minji has ever talked to in all of her conversations with so many people.

Everyone wants to be happy. Minji is happy. She really wants to thank her.

She watches Yoohyeon crash through the backstage doors during one of their showcase dry rehearsals, grinning ear to ear with a string of Halloween lights wrapping her like a mummy.

“Guys, look what Dongie was hiding from props!” She fumbles with a packet of batteries for a second, and the lights start to twinkle orange. “Hey, what’s up ‘boo’—” She tries to pose, and promptly slips on the cable and crashes to the ground.

The theatre members around appropriately boo her display in good humor. She clambers back up with a burst of laughter. It’s April. The lights are pumpkins, not ghosts. Minji really, really wants to thank her.

But her friends come to clown her some more, and Minji is still shy — sue her, Bora is still unfathomably the loudest one in school — so she backs off to rejoin her friends while she waits for Yoohyeon to be alone.

But then the next rehearsal, as Minji is zoning out backstage to an enthusiastic High School Musical sing-along excuse for baseball bat sparring — _“it’s easy… take your best shot — just hit it!”_ — Seola sidles up next to her.

“You know what your problem is now?”

Minji blinks. “Did I eat your sandwich? I thought I just imagined that.”

“No, Minji,” Seola says with the smug air of someone who’s skipped to the end of the script and can’t wait to spoil the grand finale. “Your problem is that you have a crush on someone, but you won’t tell your poor, clueless best friend _who._ ”

“I have a crush on someone?” Minji wonders. That’s a new concept. Plenty of students have admitted her as their crush, but she rejects any serious hopes as nicely as she can, because… well, she doesn’t have a crush on someone?

“Is it Eunbi? Sungjae. No, J.seph. Exy? Because that’s breaking bro code—“

“I don’t have a crush on anyone,” Minji cuts her off with a disbelieving laugh.

Seola scrutinizes her. Minji is grateful she is a good actor as she neutrally meets her gaze. And then she wonders why she needs to be grateful that she is a good actor, because she isn't acting, because she really doesn’t have a crush on anyone.

“Alright Minji,” Seola sniffs, crossing her arms and slinking away. “Alright.”

Minji sees her off with an exasperated chuckle. The upwards tug of her lips stays and only increases as she hears loud stomps from on stage accompanied by Yoohyeon’s angsty Vanessa Hudgens impersonation — _"and when you smiiiled it made me feeeel, like I could sing aloooong!!!”_ — and she can already imagine the goofy grin Yoohyeon wears as she bounces around, and how the sight fills her with a fond sort of lightness that she’s never felt under weighty responsibilities towards people’s expectations, and Minji is happy and really, really wants to thank—

Oh.

 _Oh._ Alright Minji. Alright.

So, maybe, in the wake of her rapid character development, she failed to notice a major plot point. Then again, it’s not like this was an isolated event, not like it happened all at once in one simple, magical moment. Life is more complicated than that. People are more complicated than that. Falling—

There is a telling thud onstage. Yoohyeon’s solo is cut short with a groan of pain.

Tragic irony, really.

Junior year ends — _“What time is it: time of our lives! Anticipation!”_ — and Minji still hasn’t had the time to really think about it. About what she wants. About what makes her happy. About the things that are out there ready for her to catch and hold, to grow into, to fit with — things she never would have known could exist for her if someone hadn’t, in the smallest of forgotten gestures, held her hand and showed her.

Things that might scare her, but might just be worth it to try.

The only mildly exciting thing she does in the next couple of months is dye her hair a matching blonde with Seola, for the obligatory summer break moment of unchained impulsivity. Mostly, all she does is think. She thinks and thinks, and when she opens the empty auditorium with her key two hours before the official start of her senior year, she takes slow steps downstage until she reaches the edge, faces down a shy, wordless audience of one, and makes the insurmountably difficult yet all too easy decision:

She can be honest with her feelings, too. If nothing else; if not about wanting what makes herself happy, if not about a brave just-above-a-whisper of a name across a stage; Yoohyeon deserves honesty. She deserves to know she is as much a star as she sees in everyone else, that her earnesty is seen and felt and returned. That maybe, just maybe, she isn't the only one who has fallen.

Later — soon, in fact — four others will slip in with Yubin’s key and sit in a circle exactly around the spot where Minji stands now. They will begin their adaptation of the story, oblivious to the one that started three years ago with wide hallways, white knuckles, and scuffed sneakers rooted in front of a locker.

But that’s later. For now, Minji turns with the smallest of smiles, hums softly to herself, and exits the stage.

_Lights remain up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this episode of the author thinks they're funnier than they are:  
> \- yttrium hydride is a compound of yttrium and hydrogen, periodic symbols Y H.
> 
> next episode:  
> \- the author offers what happened in the locked techie room in exchange for mercy


	6. Act Three: Scene 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Senior year, much like choice friendships in the theatre club, begins in chaos and only spirals deeper from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, a healthcare worker in america feverishly posting this after getting a second covid vaccine dose and feeling like I got hit by a truck: I should have stuck to playwriting
> 
> me, trying and failing to reread this monstrosity: nvm
> 
> if I recover and it still sucks just pretend I didn't freeze and forget who my entire character is even while you all helpfully whispered my lines at me :c

ACT THREE

SCENE 1

Senior year, much like choice friendships in the theatre club, begins in chaos and only spirals deeper from there. It’s not even the heavily armored squad of federal agents that shows up unannounced in week one and only leaves once Gahyeon innocently rollerblades by to utter a single sentence. It’s not even the buzz when Bora “accidentally” hospitalizes a homophobe and gets off scott free despite her obvious lying. It’s frustratingly chaotic for the most mundane of reasons:

Minji is just so _busy_.

There are applications and final exams and textbooks three years overdue to worry about, and still, desperate for shoulders to lean on in the wake of unknown futures, her classmates take to sociality with an equally fervent passion. She doesn’t blame them. She too has been struck with the urge to make the most of the time she has left with her friends, to linger during lunchtime to help out her favorite teachers, to hold onto these people she has gone from fearing to loving. So she is more than willing, when people ask for her time and attention, to give it. She isn't upset about it, necessarily.

It just means, unlike a certain scriptwriter visionaire, she hasn’t had time to think of a plan.

She gets a chance to take a breath when Sera calls the club in after school to decide on this semester’s play. Their second-to-last play of their high school careers. Sera always has good advice, but Minji really pauses to let this sink in as she settles onto the edge of the stage close to the stairs, facing Yoohyeon’s corner of the front row audience. She had hoped to finally get a chance to talk to her, but her friends flank her from behind and she is too preoccupied with the scripts to look up.

So is Minji, once they get to Deja Vu.

“Queen shit,” B.M. says from behind her, as her friends volunteer her to read for Jiu’s part.

“There’s a cockroach on your armrest,” Yubin says to Yoohyeon, as Yoohyeon accidentally volunteers herself to read for Yoohyeon’s part.

And maybe it’s something in Sera’s reminder that gives their voices more weight. Or maybe it’s simply that, throughout all these years of shared stages and just missed glances, Minji and Yoohyeon have never actually read together to know how their voices sound like this, easily carrying and tossing emotion back and forth between them. Either way, it’s undeniably _good._ Yoohyeon is good. Minji searches for Yoohyeon’s eyes as their final lines of dialogue leave the auditorium hushed in appreciation, unable to help the excited smile that comes across her face.

Yoohyeon, in what has become their expected routine, does not look up. And then she votes for cyberpunk Hamlet. Minji frowns. Then Yoohyeon’s hand drops as Handong whispers something in her ear, and Minji could have sworn she hears her name, but Yoohyeon only flushes and swats her friend away. Still without looking up. Minji gets bombarded by classmates after the vote, everyone (sans Yeri and Sooyoung) bubbling with excitement for the play, and when she finally frees herself for a moment to scan the rest of the remaining students, Yoohyeon is already gone. A friend tugs her away to talk costume looks, but Minji barely processes the conversation.

Before her head gets submerged in the whirling waters of obligation again, she takes one last gulp of fresh, clarity-inducing air:

She needs a plan.

//

It comes to her at the last minute, right at the end of lunch on audition day. She manages to slip away from her friends citing something forgotten in her locker, passes right by the open door of the broken first floor bathroom where five vaguely familiar shifty figures have their heads in a pre-game huddle, and makes her way to Sera’s office.

Freshman year Minji walked this way with a welcome but heavy weight slung over her shoulders. Now, a feathery lightness spreads throughout her body at the familiar scene she’s had memorized since then:

A nearly empty hallway. A confused Minji, quietly coming to a stop as well. And Yoohyeon, distant eyes locked on a theatre sign-up sheet, feet stuck in place.

Deja vu hits Minji hard, but slips away once Yoohyeon drops her head and gives a dejected sigh, the ones she only lets out when she thinks she is alone in the wings. Her feet shift as if to abandon the set.

This isn't how it went. And Minji is filled with the conviction that this isn't how it should go.

“Need a pen?”

It’s an incredible role reversal. And as Yoohyeon meets her eyes with a shocking depth of emotion Minji is used to observing from afar but never seeing up close, she is taken by an overwhelming urge to wrap a supportive arm around Yoohyeon’s slumped shoulders and hold her close. Instead, mindful of her plan and how they are running out of time, she spills out only part of what she really wants to let her know. Because Minji understands. She takes Yoohyeon’s hand, just as Yoohyeon once did for her.

Pride fills her chest and makes it even lighter as her leading partner signs, much more coordinated than that first time.

Then she remembers: Yoohyeon isn't her partner. Yet. Everyone else felt their undeniable chemistry — she just needs Yoohyeon to finally see it.

She bids her a reluctant but quick farewell, and hurries along to Sera’s office.

“Minji, my lovely child! How can I help you? I’m almost done with your letter of recommendation. Juilliard really has the most pretentious standards, but that’s what you get when you raise jazz hands to a Stradivarius ensemble…”

“Actually Sera… I was thinking about try-outs later today. Do you think it would be possible to add another segment to Jiu and Yoohyeon’s auditions?”

She runs into Sooyoung and Yeri on the way out.

“Damn Minji, turn the sun down a bit. What are you so happy about?”

“Never mind that, Soo, you gotta ask the important questions. Hey Minji: thoughts on ‘I Don’t Dance’ as performed by Chad and Ryan in the 2007 hit movie High School Musical 2?”

Minji’s thoughts are a bit preoccupied. She shrugs. “Gay?”

Yeri points two triumphant fingers at her, pleased. “ _You_ my dear, get to play Gabriella.”

“Who’s gonna play Troy?” Sooyoung wonders.

“I think we all know who did what in the Trojan War.”

Yeri snorts as they continue on into Sera’s office, leaving a blissfully oblivious Minji to skip down the halls.

//

Minji’s plan works. Too well.

Yoohyeon is absolutely magical as she recites the monologue. Her eyes flutter open and find Minji’s almost immediately, like they truly are two souls destined to intertwine in a tale of epic proportions. Minji is a pro at switching between her true personality and her acting personas, but Yoohyeon appears to take a bit longer to recover herself as she continues to look at Minji with hopeless longing and resignation etched into her eyes.

Then Sera sends Minji a sly wink — her kids get their dramatics from somewhere — and announces the additional audition segment.

It’s a blur — Yoohyeon looks panicked, Minji doesn’t even realize she’s holding her hand until she has to go up on stage, Seola is acting _weird_ , and Minji really tries her best with the others but that easy familiarity just isn't there — and then Yoohyeon says they’re ready.

Minji is a good actor. And that synergy is there, the kind that sparks whenever their eyes actually meet, and outright burns the oxygen from the rest of the room when they seamlessly dance with each other in dialogue and movement. Minji follows Yoohyeon’s lead, and it’s _good_.

But Minji wasn't ready. Not for the swooping in her chest that has nothing to do with the adrenaline of their impromptu trust fall: She blinks open her eyes, Yoohyeon’s lap beneath her, to find soft hands cradling her head with the gentlest, most reverent of touches. Minji isn't ready for the endearing sight of Yoohyeon — sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck and looking away — to flood her whole being with the urge to reach out and pull her back in.

“...I didn’t expect you to fall.”

Neither did Minji.

“Thanks for catching me.”

Heart brimming with fondness, Minji can’t help but wrap her in the briefest of hugs and let her know, voice soft as memory, that she was great. It’s not exactly what she wants to say, but she’s sure they’ll be seeing each other more often very soon, so she lets Seola and her smug smirk tug her away from the scene.

“Alright, Minji,” is all her friend says. “Alright.”

//

It’s not alright.

Now that Minji gets to spend time with her center stage, she gets front row seats to how Yoohyeon somehow manages to _always_ be in harm’s way.

Minji has a heart attack every other prehearsal.

And then comes the confusing way Yoohyeon acts — not theatre-wise, but with Minji. It’s not that she’s avoiding Minji, per se; at least Minji’s weak heart really hopes she’s not. It’s just that sometimes it’s so easy, the two of them — it’s comfortable and familiar and Minji can’t help but positively beam for the rest of the day whenever she makes Yoohyeon bark out that surprised, unrestrained laugh of hers — but sometimes all Yoohyeon does is shuffle awkwardly and make a hasty get-away.

Maybe she is uncomfortable with the new edits to the script that put Jiu and Yoohyeon in more romantically tense scenes. As far as Minji knows, neither of them have been in a romantic relationship before, but Minji has acted out her fair share of love stories and stage kisses. Maybe that’s it. Or maybe she just came on too strong with the sword-fighting practice.

Either way, the stress of her heart and the play and keeping up with schoolwork and friends is heavy. She decides to back off a bit, even if spending time with Yoohyeon makes her feel so light she could fly.

Their talented costume designer decides at that very moment to snag them both and sit them side-by-side in the dressing room for their measurements. Which, oh. Alright. This is fine.

“Wow. I knew you were tall, but your proportions are model-worthy, Yoo. Minji, don’t you think Yoohyeon could be a model?”

Minji has been doing all she can to not steal glances at said model-worthy proportions.

This is fine.

“Oh, let me go get another pen. I’ll be right back. Help me out and take Minji’s measurements, yeah?”

This is not fine.

Except it is, because Yoohyeon has turned so red with discomfort that Minji is about to frantically assure her she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to and that she probably only needs help with the height, but then Yoohyeon beats her to it by blurting exactly what she was about to say. And her eyes shift rapidly as she says this, but end up locked on Minji’s as if to convey her sincerity, and Minji realizes Yoohyeon looks so panicked because she thinks _Minji_ is uncomfortable.

She can’t help but laugh at the absurd irony of it all.

“It’s alright, Yoohyeon. I trust you, remember? ...Plus, you’d know better than me, but I think Handong isn't someone you’d want to make angry.”

And it really is alright, because while Yoohyeon is notorious for being clumsy even after growing into her lanky limbs, her hands are as steady and careful as they were when they caught Minji and held her head in her lap. It’s so easy to trust someone so unconsciously honest. Yoohyeon makes it so easy to fall.

When Handong tosses them their hoodies, Yoohyeon in her haste doesn’t notice she has shrugged on the wrong one. Minji goes with it, figuring she can point it out and swap later, and basks in the coziness of the dark cotton warmed by Yoohyeon. She makes sure to thank Handong on the way out.

She does mean to point it out to Yoohyeon, but in the excitement of Gahyeon accidentally setting “The Show” half of a “Welcome to” signicade on fire, she forgets. And then she does mean to return it, setting it beside her pillow at home so she’d remember in the morning, but she sleeps so well she misses her alarm and leaves the hoodie behind in her late scramble. Then the spontaneous paint war that breaks out when she tries to broker a compromise between Yeojin and Aisha prompts her to keep the hoodie safe at home until next week when all the backdrop paint has dried. It ends up being dress-up day when she finally brings it with her, and that’s more than enough of an exciting distraction, but then Siyeon orders Yoohyeon’s hair to be made _silver_ and Gahyeon drops from the catwalk to drag her new prisoner away.

“Oo, Minji Minji Minji! Can you do me a favor?”

As anyone at the school will admit, it is impossible to say no to Gahyeon.

“Yoohyeon’s hair has to sit but I need cuddles for an indeterminate length of time. Can you check on her in about two hours and make sure she’s still breathing?”

When she walks into the dressing room, Yoohyeon is sprawled in her chair, knocked out — asleep, Minji realizes with a sigh of relief. She quietly moves to the couch and sets a timer, and sets to work on memorizing lines and stage directions as she waits.

She underestimated how chilly it gets in the dressing room when there aren’t a dozen bodies scrambling around for the next costume change.

She pulls Yoohyeon’s hoodie from her bag.

She also underestimated how soothing the combination of Yoohyeon’s scent and Yoohyeon’s deep, even breaths could be.

She wakes up with fuzzy vision. She squints at her surroundings to hit her alarm, remembers her assignment from Gahyeon, and realizes her phone is beside her glasses and her script set neatly on a vanity counter. The one that she usually uses. The fuzzy feeling spreads into her chest as she places her glasses back on her face, and turns to meet Yoohyeon’s sleepy smile.

Because she’s just dyed Seola’s hair that summer, she thinks she is prepared to help Yoohyeon with hers. But when all the foil is gone and Yoohyeon tousles her silver locks contemplatively as she blow drys it out—

“Wow, Yoohyeon, you look _stunning_ ,” she says once she’s regained her breath, and maybe their guards are lower when they’re sleepy, but she says it far softer and more intimate than she intended, and Yoohyeon flushes and doesn’t look away.

Minji is happy. Like this, feeling so light and content, she is happy. It feels so natural in a way that learning to be with people has never been before, almost as if this is something that doesn’t need to be rehearsed until she isn't scared of it anymore. The smallest of things. Like the way their arms link and their paces slow to match each other’s is something her heart has already innately memorized.

She still needs to thank Yoohyeon for it. But the moment is too soft to break with weighty words. So instead, she offers, “I’ll see you next week?” And Yoohyeon agrees and makes a joke and averts her eyes with a sheepish grin, and Minji absolutely needs to share the fuzziness she feels so she wraps Yoohyeon in a tight hug, silver hair pressed between her cheek and Yoohyeon’s shoulder.

She gets home and realizes she forgot the hoodie again. This time, though, she feels no need to make an excuse for it.

//

The play is fast approaching. It’s not quite that time yet, the period Sera calls dress rehearsals and what everyone else calls Death Week, but it might as well be. As any good school apparently has a moral obligation to do, all important and otherwise exhaustive exams and events manage to be scheduled on what seems the same damn span of five days.

Minji walks into a nearly empty auditorium the next Friday. Only a few dutiful stragglers stick around to work on lines or sets; the rest of the theatre club has gone home to prepare for their other obligations next week. Minji swears she catches a glimpse of silver hair somewhere in the wings, and moves to investigate. She is stopped short in her tracks as Gahyeon bungees down in front of her face.

“Heads up,” Yubin drones from the catwalk, far too late.

“Sorry Minji! Forgot to put out the warning walkie,” Gahyeon says. “Yubin figured enough people weren’t here for it to matter. Clearly her calculations were off!” She shoots back up as she sing-songs the last part. Yubin’s voice carries in the near-empty auditorium as she bluntly offers to miscalculate Gahyeon’s next bungee release.

Minji cranes her neck to cautiously watch for her descent. “Do you guys know if Yoohyeon is here today?”

“Yeah! Techie room, she’s in the techie room!” Gahyeon practically shrieks as she falls back, walkie talkie in hands. “Phase Ten is a go!”

“Ten?” Yubin’s voice squawks through the walkie talkie, echoing Minji’s own thoughts.

“Ten Minutes in the Closet, c’mon Yubs, have you learned nothing of playwriting tropes from Siyeon?”

Minji still doesn’t get it. Maybe Siyeon edited something last-minute into the script? All the more reason to find Yoohyeon so they can practice their dialogue together. Minji doesn’t really get nervous anymore, standing in front of audiences with or without her glasses, but some other anticipatory feeling compels her to give her absolute all to this play in particular. They deserve it. The brilliant writer of the play, the club seniors who’ve worked so hard to get where they are now, the audience who comes to support them and to be swept out of reality for two magical hours… Yoohyeon.

They deserve her all.

In a way, the finale starts like this:

An open stage. Hands tucked snugly in the pockets of a stolen hoodie. Confident feet, carrying her around the corner into the shadows of the curtains and whatever waits for her there.

So different a parallel to the beginning, merely a vague stage direction in the eyes of everyone else. But this is Minji’s version of the story.

She finds Yoohyeon sprawled on the techie room floor, one hand shielding her eyes from her script as she vigorously mouths her lines to herself, committing dialogue to memory. She peeks from between her fingers and lets out the most adorable whine of frustration when she doesn’t get it quite right. She clamps her fingers shut and tries again, renewed determination written in the parts of her face that remain uncovered, and Minji thinks to herself that there isn't possibly a better version out there.

“ _‘...For those words to reach you, it takes so long… we resemble each other; we live holding the same memories…’_ ”

“... _‘I’m happy that it’s you.’_ ” Minji reads it on her lips and finishes the line. Yoohyeon jolts upright, and whaps herself in the face with the script.

“Min—ow. Minji! Hi,” Yoohyeon says, uncovering her eyes and looking away under Minji’s amused giggle. “What brings you here?”

“Gahyeon told me I could find you here.” Minji steps further into the room around a rusty scaffolding tower. “How about you?”

“Oh, well, I was blocking with Siyeon, but then Gahyeon asked me to find some doofer or other in here for her, and…” Yoohyeon trails off, throwing her arms out at the surrounding hodge-podge of tech equipment, stray set backdrops, and piles of miscellaneous objects they can’t be sure are even related to theatre at all — the techie room is a hazardous playground of _stuff_ , used more for a hangout spot than a storage area, since it’s near impossible for anyone but Yubin to find anything in it.

“...And it’s impossible to say no to Gahyeon,” Minji interprets her hopeless gesture wisely.

Yoohyeon sighs, and they exchange a sympathetic, rueful nod.

Minji offers before Yoohyeon can duck her head again. “Want some help looking?”

“Oh, it’s okay… I sort of gave up twenty minutes ago. I think she mostly wanted everyone off stage. She and Yubin are plotting something for stage effects, and personally, I don’t want to be standing under them when they’re testing it out.”

Minji laughs. “Wise. I was standing there when Siyeon was bouncing effect ideas off of the techies, and now I’m going to be holding a bouquet of flaming flowers at the end of Act One.”

Yoohyeon blanches. “They’re making you do what now.”

“While blindfolded,” Minji adds offhandedly.

Yoohyeon looks as if she is either going to faint or run back out into the warzone to snip some bungee cords. The conflict between the two rages on her face for a moment, before she buries her face in her copy of the script with another emphatic _whap_.

“Why are they like this,” Yoohyeon groans.

Minji arrives within a few paces from her and crouches on her heels, arms wrapped around her knees as she hums, contemplative. “Maybe it’s a senior year thing. I know I’ve been trying extra hard this semester… maybe a little _too_ hard. Some of my friends,” Seola’s smug smirk briefly flashes into her head, “have been pushing me to make the most of it. I don’t think it really hit me until recently though, how little time we have left; here, together.”

The script slowly slides down, revealing Yoohyeon’s head pensively cocked to the side. “I think I know exactly what you mean. It’s like… like with all of the changes that are around the corner, everyone suddenly sees all of these chances to be seen one last time, before we have to move on and grow up.” She tucks her knees up and wraps her arms around them with a wry smile. “And they take them, so easily. Although, my friends never really hesitated to begin with.”

It’s not a reference to the way Yubin always gets straight to the point, or the way Bora met Siyeon and immediately declared her intent to make her hers — the implications are obvious, in the melancholic, nearly sad light in the corners of Yoohyeon’s eyes. Her strong-willed friends might take all the chances they please, but not Yoohyeon herself. Like she is still stuck in awkward limbs that might reach out but still not be seen. Like that chance is still more terrifying than having to move on without trying.

Minji sits across from her avoidant eyes, a mirror in posture and memory, and wants nothing more than for Yoohyeon to see: everyone is already, always, turning blind corner after corner in hallways so wide yet still so unable to fit them into its vastness. And that’s because it’s not so much about growing up, like there exists an inevitable cap of maturity, as it is about just _growing_ — an immense, constant potential for impact both small and everlasting. And that the way Yoohyeon unrestrainedly skids around corners, never hesitating to extend a clumsy hand and a chance to everyone else around her — the honest way she presents herself to people, and makes them feel seen — makes her the brightest star of them all.

“Yoohyeon,” she begins slowly, trying to find the right words. “I want to tell you…”

“ _‘...all the words that I’ve ever hidden, before this season that resembles you passes._ Uh…”

Minji blinks. “ _‘The memories of a midsummer night like a shower… remembering everything I want with you now.’_ ” Though confused at the turn, her response to the script dialogue is automatic.

Yoohyeon beams. “ _That’s_ what it is! I always mix up ‘like a shower’ with ‘no more yielding than a dream’; I think it’s because of that time I was Bottom’s understudy…”

Belatedly, Minji realizes that the way she started her sentence is the exact start of a line from their dialogue in Act Two, Scene Two. And, bemusedly watching the way Yoohyeon buries her nose in her script as she diligently flips to find it, she also realizes that Yoohyeon’s puppy descriptor remains accurate because she has the attention span of one.

Minji might have tried again, but the way Yoohyeon mumbles to herself with furrowed brows, and her little, pleased _aha!_ as she locates it and begins mouthing the words to herself again— 

“Cute,” Minji accidentally mumbles her thoughts aloud.

“Hm?” Yoohyeon looks up distractedly, all too oblivious and innocent and _cute_. And, well, alright.

“Want to go through our lines together?” Minji offers, deciding her thank you can wait for another half hour. Yoohyeon always gives her all, whether it be High School Musical sing-alongs or practicing the feeling in each line and pause of a script. It’s inspiring, and engrossing to watch, even if it does interfere with Minji’s plan.

“O-oh, yeah! That’d be great!”

Minji has been a faithful audience for a year, if not subconsciously three. So, really, she can wait a little longer.

She glances around for a spare script someone might have left on accident in a voyage through the techie room. Her eyes trail up and land on the alcove behind Yoohyeon, a space between the high ceiling and the wooden slats of a levelled closet space beneath it. It’s not tall enough to stand up in, unless you were Yeojin or Yoojung on a bad day, but it is wide and sturdy enough for a handful of people to lounge around atop. Since the techie room is almost always left open, students have outfitted the makeshift loft with a mish-mash of throw rugs, random stolen chairs, and amusing patches of graffiti along the walls and ceiling. A cozy, if slightly dangerous canopy for those who need a moment of quiet.

Minji points. “Would you like to go up? Unless the cement floor is more comfortable for you.” She gives a grin so Yoohyeon knows she’s teasing.

Yoohyeon flushes, and turns away to flap a hand at the extension ladder propped against the short closet wall, the only means of getting up to the loft.

“I don’t really trust myself not to fall,” she admits with a short laugh at her own acknowledged clumsiness.

Minji scootches closer, hand offered. “Trust me to catch you?”

There is a beat as Yoohyeon turns back and searches her face. Minji nudges her glasses up with a knuckle, and looks back.

“Alright,” Yoohyeon says, a soft sort of resignation in her voice. She clasps Minji’s hand in hers, and together they pull themselves up to their feet.

It does end up being a dramatic affair, trying to get Yoohyeon up the ladder. Slippery soles and matter-of-fact _I am going to die._ proclamations result in a lot of panicked shouts and relieved giggles, and also their obliviousness towards the surreptitious way the techie room door shuts with a click behind them.

“Oh thank god Gahyeon left her blanket behind,” Yoohyeon groans out in one muffled breath as she finally collapses spread-eagle onto the steady platform of the loft, burying her face into the soft down. Minji follows and takes a seat on a plastic yellow kiddie chair backed against the section of wall with a particularly messy mural of names, those of theatre kids past and present.

“ _‘Leave not your blankets behind, but all songs that once were ours,’_ ” Minji jokes, misquoting a line from the character Dami.

“ _‘As a crowtit should I sing, if upon an octopus’ legs you shall break.’_ ” Yoohyeon lifts her chin just barely enough to glare at a specific doodle on the adjacent wall, with her name drawn beside an arrow in what looks suspiciously like Bora’s handwriting. Minji follows her counter with another.

“ _‘But when a kingdom and its heart both break, what’s a queen to a flame…’_ ”

“ _‘...and what’s a flame to a Squidward?’_ ”

Yoohyeon flops over onto her back to meet Minji’s deadpan, Jiu-esque pose upon her tiny chair. It only takes a beat for them to dissolve into laughter again. That easy, soft sort of atmosphere from their shared nap in the dressing room permeates and settles into this space too; as if from up here they are removed from queenly duties and academic responsibilities alike, as if the elevation in perspective is enough to let them see each other without spotlights and nearsightedness blurring their perceptions.

With the wrinkled script lying between them on an overlap of two mismatching rugs, they go back to the beginning.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Minji’s estimate of half an hour was at least four times too short. What with Yoohyeon’s attention span often trailing their dialogue off into speculation over what Sera’s reaction to some of Yubin’s planned stage effects will be, and with Minji having to dive far too frequently to save Yoohyeon from toppling over the edge of the loft as they exaggeratedly act out stage directions and choreography, they’ve barely gotten through the first act an hour later. There’s just something timeless about the way this story goes: two people losing track of themselves in the laughter of the other, and neither minding one bit.

From whatever beginning and to whatever end: Minji, right now, is unspeakably happy.

Yoohyeon’s face is flushed as well, with the force of her grins. All of her emotions are made plain to anyone who looks, but Minji thinks she’s never seen anyone wear happiness so well.

But as they continue, the rosiness of Yoohyeon’s cheeks turns into the faint pink of something else. She shifts distractedly, cross-legged knees bouncing, fingers picking at the blanket beneath them. Minji hesitates, forgetting the next lines in her worried observation.

“Yeah, uh, we don’t… I mean Bora always attacks us with fake ones so, like, I got the concept down… we don’t have to…”

Minji doesn’t get what Yoohyeon is nervously referring to, so she reaches for the script, settling back into her kiddie chair and peering through her glasses as she flips, and—

Oh.

They’re at the kiss scene.

Yoohyeon is uncomfortable.

Minji swallows down some thick feeling she doesn’t remember carrying with her from the previous scene, and tries to reassure her. “Oh! We can just read through, if you want. Stage kisses aren’t all that…” she tries to remember the ones she’s done, but all she sees is Yoohyeon anxiously biting her bottom lip. “...all that.” She clears her throat, and launches into her opening line, voice full of the scene’s required despair.

Yoohyeon follows along, but her eyes still flit around the loft as if trying to find something else to distract her.

 _“You know I would hear your every wish. I would grant you the world if it were… mine… to give?”_ Minji’s recitation trails off into a concerned question mark as Yoohyeon’s gaze finds something to fixate on with confusion culminating in a pout.

 _“Then… I ask…_ is that my hoodie?”

Minji blinks. Looks down. Looks back up to meet Yoohyeon’s eyes, more wondering than accusing.

She blushes. In another reversal, Minji avoids her gaze, and sheepishly rubs at the back of her neck.

“Sorry, I meant to return it a while ago, but — here, sorry!” She begins to tug at the sleeves to take it off and finally give it back to its owner.

Yoohyeon’s eyes widen. “No no no! Don’t take off — you don’t — I uh, you…” she stammers, squeezes her eyes shut to collect herself, and opens them with a stern puff of air. “You don’t have to give it back. I don’t mind.”

Minji pauses, hands in sweater paws. “...Really?”

Yoohyeon nods, as earnest as ever. “Really. You can keep it. You look good in it.”

And that’s what does it. Minji, drowning in the comfy warmth of Yoohyeon’s hoodie and the atmosphere they’ve settled into, just the two of them. Yoohyeon, meeting her eyes even through her awkwardness, just so that Minji can see and feel the pure honesty of her words. It’s the smallest of things. It’s confidence in another spoken like a fact; it’s walking arm-in-arm like time isn't anything but part of a rapt audience; it’s looking and finally seeing, and not having to shy away from the feeling that looks back.

“Besides, I still have yours… Handong really—”

“Yoohyeon,” Minji interrupts, because she was wrong: she _can’t_ wait any longer.

Yoohyeon startles, but reaches for the script for the right response. “Jiu?”

Minji shakes her head. “Yoohyeon,” she says again, voice impossibly soft, repeated like her name is something far too precious to ever forget. “I’ve been meaning to thank you…”

And, finally, she does. For the care that came with the hoodie, for the melodic vibrancy always in the periphery of her vision, for a voice that’s finally found itself after three years.

Minji tells her version of the story, starting from the world-changing moment Yoohyeon ran into her locker door and crumpled at her feet. She doesn’t say, in so many words, how she herself fell — it reads as inevitable to any audience anyway, and to Yoohyeon, all she wants is to let her know:

“...And while I’ve never seen someone make impact with something that hard… I’ve also never been impacted by someone as much — as deeply — as you. So… thank you, Yoohyeon,” Minji finishes, her small smile the most genuine one she has ever given. “Thank you for being you.”

Because Yoohyeon deserves it. She deserves the world, but all Minji has to offer is her heart, light and honest and happy.

A stunned silence has settled over their hideaway. Yoohyeon blinks at her, speechless.

Then a dozen different emotions flit across her face, each more intense than the last. She opens her mouth as if to say something, to protest; she shuts it, overwhelmed with all the thoughts flying through her head and scrambling halfway to her tongue. Minji sees this and parts her own lips to reiterate everything she’s just said, because she has her voice and she will not rest it until Yoohyeon _knows_ how awe-inspiring she is, how she has never had anything to be self-conscious or self-doubting for, how much Minji wishes she could show her how utterly captivating—

Yoohyeon surges forward, and kisses her.

And, oh.

_Oh._

Yoohyeon is kissing her.

It’s chaste, and soft, and _Yoohyeon_. The script — _“tasteful, but brimming with barely restrained passion”_ — is knocked from her lap as she reaches up.

With one hand, she gently pushes Yoohyeon back. Yoohyeon’s eyes fly open immediately, aghast, already sputtering apologies. With her other hand, Minji takes off her glasses that only hinder at this proximity, sets them aside, and pulls Yoohyeon back in.

Yoohyeon’s stammers are cut off with a surprised squeak. Her arms flail forward for balance, one palm slapping up against the mural of names on the wall behind Minji’s head, the other freezing mid-air by her shoulder as Minji reconnects their lips. It’s still soft, but definitely not as chaste, and _oh_ — alright, Minji.

Mind still catching up with her body, Yoohyeon shifts a step closer in her awkward hunch, and slips on the script.

With only one hand really balancing her, it doesn’t take much for Yoohyeon to send them both tilting over sideways off of the tiny plastic chair. They topple together, a blur of silver and gold, and are caught by the fluffy padding of Gahyeon’s blanket.

Automatically, Minji’s hands had come up to shield Yoohyeon’s head from impact, but at the same time, Yoohyeon had tried to twist them so her body would take the brunt of it. All it results in is the both of them falling on their sides, an arm’s length apart, flustered giggles giving way to expressions of awe as they simply stop and look at each other for a moment.

Then Minji’s fingers curve around the back of Yoohyeon’s neck, and Yoohyeon tugs at the front of her stolen hoodie, and it’s clumsy and earnest and _Yoohyeon_ and Minji’s chest soars like it can’t possibly ever be weighed down again. They kiss for what feels like an eternity, but nowhere near long enough — Yoohyeon pulls back with a breathless _whoa_ , eyes dazed, and even though the sight is exactly like their first meeting, Minji finds herself lost completely in nothing but the present.

Until her phone alarm goes off. Startled, Yoohyeon jerks backwards, and Minji yelps and dives again to prevent her from tumbling over the edge.

They collect themselves two minutes later, safely at the bottom of the ladder, laughing into each other’s dramatically tight embrace at their combined absurd antics. It’s less dramatic and far more reluctant when they let go.

“I have to get home soon,” Minji sighs, glancing at the notifications on her phone but not really seeing them.

“Already?” Yoohyeon’s sad whine seems to slip out unbidden, she just as dazed as Minji.

Minji smiles ruefully, locking their pinkies together. “Well, we have been practicing for nearly three hours.”

“Three hours?!” Yoohyeon wakes up a little bit. “Oh god, I’m so sorry! You must have so many things you could have been doing!” She starts to lead them towards the door, and predictably trips over the corner of the scaffolding tower.

“Maybe,” Minji steadies her with a gentle hand caressing her cheek, “but this is my priority.”

The way Yoohyeon immediately flushes is almost enough to distract them from the fact that the techie room door, almost always kept open, is now shut and unbudging in their free hands.

“That’s odd,” Minji says, confused. “I thought Yubin always keeps the techie room door propped open?” She relinquishes Yoohyeon’s finger so she can dig around in the piles near the door.

Yoohyeon is free to smack both of her hands over her face with an incoherent groan that sounds similar to the syllables in Gahyeon’s name. Paperclips and a screwdriver in hand, Minji is too focused on her task to hear.

A click sounds off. “There we go,” Minji announces not half a minute later, and Yoohyeon drops her facepalm of chagrin to gape at the open door.

“You know how to pick locks?!”

Minji shrugs, extending a hand back. “I helped Tzuyu with something a while ago, and she taught me as a thank you.”

Yoohyeon takes it reflexively, shaking her head in amazement. “You’re incredible.”

It occurs to Minji as they walk out together that they left the script up on the loft, crumpled, with a footprint stamping one of its pages. It also occurs to her, as she softly squeezes Yoohyeon’s hand in hers out of sight in the curtains, that the five others most invested in the script are Yoohyeon’s friends, and that their present hawk-eyed expressions and past weirder-than-usual behavior are far less than innocent.

“Thanks for your hard work! I can’t wait to tell this story with you all!”

She waves to them with genuine gratitude. Because it doesn’t matter the interference. It doesn’t matter the missed chances. What matters is that Minji is done seeing things in hindsight.

This is her story, after all.

And with this clumsy but oh so caring hand in hers, she doesn’t need a script.

She walks back into the wings with Yoohyeon, buoyed by the weightlessness of an ending yet to be conceived, and knows that nothing on this stage of a world compares to the fact that they get to write it together.

_Main lights dim. Spotlight goes up, following MINJI and YOOHYEON as they exit, hand in hand._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this episode of the author thinks they're funnier than they are:  
> \- who did what in the trojan war: troy fell. exhausted motif: yoohyeon literally falling for minji. the troy to minji's gabriella:  
> \- every single instance of bizarre chaos mentioned from the 5 who share a braincell is actually from the plot of wips currently sitting on my computer. yes I have a story that revolves around sua sending a homophobe to the hospital. no it does not deserve to see light of day.
> 
> next episode:  
> \- the author opens their mouth to speak and finally gets booed off stage  
> \- for everyone else, it's SHOWTIME *aggressively jazz hands to deflect the tomatoes*


	7. Act Three: Scene 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amidst all the noise and movement about the stage, they share a small, private smile, and Yoohyeon thinks that maybe some of the best stories only really need an audience of two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you can tell by the wonky chapter index, I had originally intended this whole thing to be one short, sweet oneshot split into two acts with /maybe/ an intermission in between. that clearly... did not happen, so, thank you so much for sticking with this unnecessarily chaotic and prolonged ride! nothing has made me happier than to know this mess has brought smiles to other people. it was so much fun to write knowing it was enjoyable to read, so here's 9k words of meaningless fluff to close out our final act c:

_Two wide spotlights go up, one on each side of the stage, effectively setting the scene for a cross-cut. From stage right, enter MINJI laughing with her friends. From stage left, enter YOOHYEON running and screeching from her own five menaces. The two groups are engaged in playful teasing, both verbal and physical; MINJI and YOOHYEON are clearly the respective centers of attention, although YOOHYEON’S circle appears to be much more alarmingly physical in their teasing. Eventually BORA grows bored of her affectionate suplexing attempts, and both groups settle onto their sides of the stage to begin a serious discussion._

SEOLA & SIYEON, _in unison_ : So wait, let me get this straight—

SEUNGHEE & BORA, _interrupting_ : Ha! Straight.

_Spotlight stage right emphasized._

SEOLA: —you were rehearsing lines with Yoohyeon, and then you just went and kissed her?

_Spotlight stage left emphasized._

SIYEON: —you actually confessed to Minji, and then she just went and kissed you?

_Spotlights narrow on the two leads._

MINJI & YOOHYEON, _in unison_ : ...Well… not exactly?

MINJI: We were just rehearsing, yes, but it didn’t come out of nowhere… I’ve liked her for a while? I was just… too shy to tell her.

YOOHYEON: My brain just blanked, kinda, but I didn’t really confess… she said a lot of nice things? Then I just… kissed her.

_A beat._

_Spotlights widen as ALL FRIENDS speak in unison, incredulous_ : Wait, _you?!_

SEUNGYEON: _You_ , Minji? _Shy?_

HANDONG: _You_ , Yoohyeon? Kissed _her_?

MINJI & YOOHYEON, _shrugging_ : Some character development occurred.

 _Both groups spend a solid five minutes reacting appropriately to having their entire world view shifted. Notably, GAHYEON shows previously calculated odds of YOOHYEON being the one to make a move first, and in her shocked frenzy, BORA snatches the paper of zeroes and crumples it up. SIYEON prevents her from swallowing it. YUBIN and HANDONG cast her a look of begrudging approval as the ruckus dies down._ (Some _character development, indeed.)_

SEOLA & BORA, _in unison_ : Hey, how did this all start, anyway? Like, when did you even fall for her?

ONE OF THE CHAEYOUNGS: Even your best friend doesn’t know? Now you’ve gotta tell us the story.

GAHYEON: Was it before or after the Lit unit on catastrophe?

_Both spotlights slowly begin to narrow on the leads as each group leans in closer and closer to them, anticipatory._

SIYEON: Was it when Minji did that crying scene in Rose Blue? Because that tugged at _my_ heartstrings, and I’m, like, stone cold, you know.

B.M.: Was it during Boca? Did you lock eyes across stage in your epic costumes and… oh wait, didn’t Yoohyeon play a tree…?

HANDONG: It had to have been some sort of unbearably cliché meet-cute. Did you spill your coffee on her?

YUJIN: Was it love at first sight?

BORA: Enemies-to-lovers!

SOHEE: Soulmate reincarnation?

GAHYEON: Space opera.

DOYEON: Let the woman speak!

YUBIN: Well?

_Both groups of friends pause, attention riveted as they await the assuredly romantic, epic tale of MINJI and YOOHYEON._

MINJI, _bashfully_ : Well, there wasn’t really a specific moment… but… I guess it all started when… 

YOOHYEON, _dreamily_ : I slammed my head into her locker door.

_A beat of silence. A long, long beat. So long that SIYEON checks her script for the next cue._

_YUBIN speaks for ALL._

“...What the hell, Yoohyeon.”

The regular stage lights go up as Sera waltzes in to begin rehearsal. Feigning disappointment, the ensemble wraps up their teasing for the moment, leaving Yoohyeon with exasperated hair tousles and demands to get the real, revised backstory later.

But Yoohyeon looks across the stage to see Minji in the middle of what looks like a very animated conversation, laughing freely. Just that sight floods her chest with warmth, with that now familiar thing about Minji — the thing that sends Yoohyeon’s heart racing but at the same time wraps her in calming certainty.

Then Minji turns, and finds Yoohyeon’s gaze. She shifts her glasses up.

Amidst all the noise and movement about the stage, they share a small, private smile, and Yoohyeon thinks that maybe some of the best stories only really need an audience of two.

//

The deadlines of every single exam, project, and paper for every single class ever bleed into Death Week; which brings not only its namesake, but a spread of epiphanies over the student body. Some of these are collective, like _sleep is for the weak but man am I weak_ , or _the education system here is irreparably flawed and cares little for students’ mental and emotional wellbeing_. Others are more specific to certain individuals, such as Bora’s _so shotgunning three Monster energy drinks before a soccer match apparently violates school policy_ , or Siyeon’s _wait, there’s no way all of that stuff should be able to fit in Gahyeon’s backpack??_

____

__

Yoohyeon’s epiphany hits her in the middle of her AP Lit final exam essay:

It wasn’t just that Yoohyeon didn’t really confess to Minji. There wasn’t a confession at _all_.

There it was, the big climax, after years of rising action not so much actually rising as it was stagnant and unbearably drawn out. They rehearsed together, Minji monologued, Yoohyeon kissed her, and then they got swept right back up in the ribbing of meddling friends and the stress of everything else courtesy of _an education system that is irreparably flawed and really wants to trample Yoohyeon’s mental and emotional wellbeing right now and man oh_ man _is she weak_.

Minji, in the entirety of her eloquent, heartfelt speech, never actually said, “Yoohyeon, I have feelings for you,” or some other variation of what would have to be an obvious statement for Yoohyeon’s oblivious, thick skull. And Yoohyeon was too overwhelmed by _her_ feelings in that surreal moment that she could barely breathe, much less think about voicing her own confession.

And yes, logically, the fact that they kissed — they _kissed!_ — and the infinite amount of sappy grins they share when they look for the other and catch them already looking back should be indication enough. They took advantage of pre-Death Week’s drama club absences to spend quiet hours after school together up on the loft; rehearsing for the play with more laughter than actual lines, talking about everything and nothing just to hear each other’s voices, catching up on missed sleep in the most comfortable and refreshing naps ever — Yoohyeon knows, according to their drama teacher, that feelings aren’t always conveyed with direct words.

So logically, she gets it. She really does.

It’s in the way they are always the last to leave the auditorium because they lose track of time when they’re together. In the way Minji always makes sure that Yoohyeon is on the side farthest from the edge of the loft when they take naps, just in case, and the way she cuddles into Yoohyeon with arms and legs draped almost protectively over her, also just in case. In the way Yoohyeon always takes care to link their arms and walk them out, because sleepy Minji is extra near-sighted and Yoohyeon somehow manages to curb her own clumsiness when Minji’s safety and comfort happens to be on the line.

It’s a silent, mutual warmth that can’t possibly _not_ mean anything, not with the way Yoohyeon looks at Minji like she’s still the angel she first saw her as, and with the way Minji glows right back as if Yoohyeon’s the one who gives flight to her wings.

Subtlety over dramatics, says Sera.

Which, sure. Except subtlety has never been Yoohyeon’s strong suit.

Being dramatic, on the other hand… 

A piece of paper floats over her shoulder, tearing her from her aghast revelation just in time, as a pitiful half-whine-half-wail was just about to escape her lungs and shatter the focused silence of the classroom. Robotically, she picks it up and reads the glittery pink message scribbled on its face.

_Roses are red, violets are blue  
All good?_

Yoohyeon glances over to Gahyeon’s desk, where she looks with wide, concerned eyes. A wave of fondness brings her fully back to her current task; her friends, while questionable in methods and personalities, always mean the best. She can count on them to have her back, even throughout the turmoil of mental and emotional not-so-wellbeing. She nods, flashing Gahyeon a reassuring, grateful smile. She’ll be fine.

Gahyeon twirls her gel pen in a circle. Confused, Yoohyeon turns the note over.

_cuz I still need to copy you :) <3_

Thirty-some pencils scratch an accidental line down their papers in surprise as a pained half-groan-half-sob fills the air.

Yoohyeon takes it all back.

//

Not her epiphany.

That, she cannot take back and shove into the concussion-addled memory corners of her brain, especially not once academic hell week is over and dress rehearsals begin in earnest. And as the date of her first leading-lady performance steadily approaches, so increases her nerves, and thus the dramatics.

D-5 to showtime:

“Do you think Minji likes me back?”

Yoohyeon’s brow has been furrowed in concentration all day, like she was the one calculating the winning equation at the national mathlete tournament. Yubin’s own eyebrow twitches. Absentmindedly, Yoohyeon rubs the spot on her cheek where Minji had just planted a kiss in passing on her way to help stagehands with the set.

Yubin is the best high school mathematician across the country. She refuses to explain what one plus one is.

Yoohyeon only looks up, confused, when her childhood best friend begins to walk away.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“My mother taught me not to talk to strangers.”

D-4 to showtime:

“But maybe that was just practice for the stage kiss scene?”

“...You’re serious.” Handong pauses in tailoring the bottom of Yoohyeon’s costume in order to glare up at her. “Did that _feel_ like a stage kiss to you?”

Yoohyeon sighs, woefully blissful. “It felt like the sunrise. Like every shooting star that’s ever happened, all at once. Like there was nothing else in the world besides us and maybe like, happy things like rainbows and puppies and bunnies and — ow!”

Handong adjusts another pin with an innocent smile. “Sorry, could you feel that?”

“Yes!”

“Huh. Funny how that works.”

D-3 to showtime:

“Okay but what if she means all this in a platonic way?”

Siyeon looks up from her script. Yoohyeon had been royal, Deja Vu Yoohyeon just a second ago as they practiced monologue pacing. The break in character back to regular Yoohyeon isn't nearly as baffling as the fact that she blurts this while fidgeting with her fingers under the sleeves of Minji’s hoodie. A different hoodie. That Minji had given to Yoohyeon when she offhandedly mentioned she was cold and then affectionately kissed the tip of her nose when Yoohyeon had squeaked and pulled the hood drawstrings tight around her face to hide from Minji’s flirtatious _you look good in my clothes, too._

Siyeon stares.

“You mean, ‘all this’, as in that break time when she put her head in your lap and let you play with her hair as you sang her to sleep? Or as in, her forgetting her lines for the first time like ever because she gets distracted looking at you like you hung the moon in the sky? Or do you mean when she literally made out with you for an hour and then said out of all of her millions of Minji duties that she prioritizes spending time with you the most?”

Yoohyeon flaps one of Minji’s sweater sleeves noncommittally. “Yeah, that.”

“Can you read line 36 from Act One, Scene Three for me? Just to check the tone.”

“Oh, sure… _‘And I, Yoohyeon, am but a fool.’_ That’s it. Was that okay, or did you want me to read from there?”

“Oh no, Yoohyeon, that was perfect.”

D-2 to showtime:

“Do you think she knows I like her like that? Like, like her like her? ‘Cause I kind of, like, really like her, like her; like that. Like—”

As of last week’s match, Bora holds the record for attempting and executing the most barely-legal tackles in a game, with thirty-four in the first half and thirty-five in the second.

All of Yoohyeon’s swordfight choreography practice pays off as Bora charges at her with Handong’s lightstaff.

D-1 to showtime:

“But what if—”

“Ah ah! Look right here — flashy thing activate! Phase Infinity is a go.”

Yoohyeon blinks as Gahyeon stores a prop neuralyzer back into her bag and returns to lugging mysteriously delivered canisters of propane inside the back doors like nothing happened.

“...Was that supposed to make me forget what I was going to say?”

“Did it work?”

“...No?”

“Of course it didn’t,” Gahyeon says cheerfully. “Because Phase Infinity is always a go.”

Yoohyeon glances up for any suddenly falling or flaming objects, just in case. Seeing no immediate danger, she tentatively asks:

“What’s Phase Infinity?”

“Quantum physics, mostly.” Gahyeon continues her task as she absentmindedly explains. “Time as the concept we know it as is made up, so our perception of space and memory is different every time we look. It’s the explanation for everyone’s innate fear of being truly seen, because it feels impossible that out of the endless amount of perspectives in an inconceivably big universe, someone could understand us at our very essence. But at the same time it’s why everyone is scared of being eventually forgotten, of passing through existence unseen and unheard. It’s inevitable in some time that both happen. We exist in a phase full of terrifying infinities. But you know, out of the infinite number of infinities out there, there’s only one concept that transcends it all, the only inexplicably constant thing that can never be forgotten — do you know what it is?”

Wholly unused to Gahyeon actually speaking like the genius she is, Yoohyeon shakes her head, dumbstruck.

“Love,” says Gahyeon simply, setting the last cylindrical propane canister onto its side and regarding Yoohyeon with uncharacteristic seriousness.

Just when Yoohyeon feels like she should be crying at something so profound, Gahyeon breaks into a wide, mischievous grin.

“Just kidding. The only thing that transcends all of time is the propensity of useless gays for making everything far more complicated than it needs to be.”

She kicks off and rolls away on the canister, arms windmilling wildly as she somehow, in true Gahyeon fashion, makes it work.

Yoohyeon, in true Yoohyeon fashion, lets out a dramatic whine, and continues to make everything far more complicated than it needs to be.

//

“Alright, my children, focus! Starting from our emcee’s welcoming statement, we’re going to speed-run through this one more time — yes Chaewon, ‘ladies and gentlemen’ is outdated and not gender-inclusive; no you may not call our distinguished guests ‘my loyal subjects’ — so, leads to house centre! Lights ready? Where is my other queen?”

Physically, Yoohyeon is aimlessly pacing the school hallways far from the auditorium. Mentally, she is scattered all over the place.

Yes, her character is full of turmoil and angst, but Yoohyeon doesn’t feel like a queen right now. The first show is in a couple of hours. Final rehearsals began as soon as school ended, the cap to a long, long week, and Yoohyeon’s frayed nerves finally caught up to her. While everyone else breezed through their roles with the adrenaline of excitement, Yoohyeon stumbled. Noticeably. Yubin threw in some rather worryingly realistic fire effects to mask her mistakes, but they did little to hide her from her castmates’ sidelong glances and Minji’s little concerned frown.

Minji.

Out of everyone — Sera and her constant encouragement, Siyeon and her passion for her art, friends and family and their anticipatory grips on cheap photo-copied printer paper tickets — Yoohyeon is most scared of disappointing Minji and her smile.

In auditions, Yoohyeon was determined to be the Yoohyeon to Jiu’s unmatched regality; now, she’s not so sure she can be what Minji deserves.

Because part of her, the part that doesn’t shriek like a train whistle in a flustered panic when she thinks about it, knows that Minji meant every word she said up on the loft. And it’s new to Yoohyeon, being seen like that — seeing herself under this unfamiliar spotlight. It’s equal parts scary and exhilarating, just like how the magnitude of her feelings only increases the more she and Minji get to make up for lost time with each other. It’s the unfathomably big things like that, and it’s also the little things — the stress of exams she knows she could have done better on if she just had a bit more time; greeting the janitor in passing and realizing she won’t get to do that in less than a year — that make her feet drag and shoulders slump with the weight of it all.

Eyes on the worn tiles beneath her sneakers, she rounds the corner, and — deja vu — runs right into something.

This time, though, it’s soft. Warm. Yoohyeon inhales sharply in surprise, and that’s enough for her brain to register comfort and familiarity, and she reaches out to catch Minji at the same time she reaches out to her.

“Oh, found you!” Minji lets out a startled laugh as they manage to stay upright, until she takes in Yoohyeon’s dejected form. Instead of demanding to know where she had gone or why she had left rehearsal without telling anyone, Minji’s steadying hands slide down from Yoohyeon’s shoulders to intertwine their fingers as she gently asks:

“Are you alright?”

And again, logically, Yoohyeon knows better. She knows she will be alright, that her epiphany is just unfounded shadows of insecurity, that even if she completely botches the actual performance of the play her friends will still love and support her the same. But Yoohyeon is dramatic, or maybe she just _feels_ a lot and right now it’s all so overwhelming, so instead of the scripted “I’m fine!” in her brain, out pours what’s swirling in her chest.

“No, I’m… I’m nervous. It felt so far away but suddenly it’s all here and everybody’s worked so hard and I don’t want to disappoint them but I’m going to mess up and probably trip over something and embarrass myself and we practiced so much but I — I don’t feel like a queen, and the future’s so scary, and I don’t want to disappoint you, Minji, because I really, really, _really_ like you a-and even if you don’t like me as much I just — you deserve the world, and…”

Yoohyeon has her eyes rooted to the floor, especially as heat creeps up into them and the telltale beginnings of tears start to well, but her attention shoots back up at the sound of a sniffle.

She blinks her tears away in bewilderment, and finds Minji with her own tears pooling in her eyes as she gazes at Yoohyeon with something akin to pure heartache. Yoohyeon panics. As Minji lets go of one of Yoohyeon’s hands to take off her glasses, Yoohyeon reaches up, frantic but tender, to wipe her tears away for her.

“What — no no no, don’t cry! Why are you crying?!”

Minji sniffles again, but leans into Yoohyeon’s touch with a watery chuckle. “I’m crying because _you’re_ crying.”

Yoohyeon is dismayed. “I’m sorry! I’m not crying, see? It’s okay! Please don’t cry!”

“Oh, Yoohyeon,” Minji says, and anyone else would have called Yoohyeon an idiot, but all Minji does is hook her glasses into the neck of her sweater and cup Yoohyeon’s cheek in kind as she explains: “It’s because I care about you; so, so much. And I want you to know that I see you, and that… it’s okay, Yoohyeon. It’s okay to be nervous, and scared. Yes, everybody’s worked hard, and that includes you — especially you, and…” She pauses to collect her thoughts, letting her words linger. “Do you remember the ‘all the world’s a stage’ speech from Shakespeare?”

Distracted, Yoohyeon freezes as Minji’s thumb delicately traces over her cheekbone. “Uh… the existential one about the puking baby?” She’s rewarded with an amused smile.

“Close enough. You know how he compares people to actors, and the phases of our lives to seven different acts?”

Yoohyeon nods, only once so as not to disturb her hand.

“We’re only somewhere between the second and third act. Of course we’re going to mess up and embarrass ourselves, and knowing you,” Minji teases with a gentle tap of her thumb, “we’re going to trip over a lot of things. But we have so many more acts to go, so many brilliant castmates to perform with and so many possible productions to put on. You said I deserve the world?”

Yoohyeon nods again, chancing two vigorous chin dips to show her conviction.

“Well,” Minji’s words are as soft as her hands as she draws herself the slightest bit closer, “all the world’s a stage, love, and you’re the star. You don’t have to be a queen. You just have to be Yoohyeon. If you give your audience that, there’s no way they could be disappointed. And if you keep sharing your stage with me — and even if you choose not to one day — I’ll be cheering you on all the way through the last act.”

She seals it like a promise with the lightest of kisses. It doesn’t leave their lips tingling; it’s not axis-shifting like their first collision of years of pining. Instead, as Minji pulls back to link their pinkies together and smiles that small, shy smile reserved for an audience of one, Yoohyeon feels her shoulders lift and the world beneath her feet become steady again. Like a stage she is meant to stand on.

They remain there for a while more, their school hallway not so wide anymore with just the two of them standing close. Yoohyeon finally, truly gets the thing Sera always says about the depths of emotions conveyed through the smallest of gestures, because all she can give in response is a nod to say _thank you, I understand, all the different acts don’t seem so scary anymore if you’ll be on stage next to me,_ and Minji’s eyes soften like she hears her.

Eventually they remember the literal stage that awaits them, as well as a number of irate dramatists prone to violent displays of feigned annoyance, and Yoohyeon links their arms together as they begin the trek back to the auditorium. Their tears have long been cast to memory.

“I’m still nervous. What if I see Sera sleeping in the audience and I laugh in the middle of a monologue?”

“ _You’re_ nervous? I have to play a convincing dead body while surrounded by flaming flowers.”

“What if I see _that_ and start laughing?”

“Then if I survive, you’re going in the flowers next.”

Giggling, they trip away over themselves as they try to chase each other down the halls, arms still linked together.

Neither of them realize they had been standing right in front of Minji’s old locker the whole time.

And as this is a story of memory and perception; far, far later, when they look back at this moment, they will only remember the smallest of details, like Minji’s wire frames dangling dangerously from the neck of her sweater as they skid around a corner together, and Yoohyeon’s silver hair getting caught in her mouth as she laughs unrestrainedly.

But since this is only the beginning of a third act out of seven, sometimes these small things are all it takes for a story that is also of love.

//

_The auditorium. The Friday opening night debut of Deja Vu. Rumors about THE MINJI and her co-star have spread around school faster than the flooded toilet water from the haunted second floor bathroom, leading to a full house. It took nearly two months for the stench of sewage to completely erase from the tile. It will take less than two hours for everyone to learn YOOHYEON’S name, and they will never forget her first dazzling introduction into the spotlight._

EMCEE: Alright, settle down — welcome, all of you esteemed-guests-I-am-not-allowed-to-call-my-loyal-subjects, to the show!

_There is a loud boo, possibly from the catwalk. A butane torch flickers shortly in agreement._

EMCEE: Valid. Let me revise that. Welcome, everyone! to the most agonizingly tragic, questionably beautiful, and oddly comedic production about love and betrayal; about memory and perception — so good, you could make a free-to-play side-scrolling RPG mobile game out of it!

_Awkward silence. Someone coughs._

EMCEE: ...Or, a really gay fanfiction that ends up being weirdly meta six… seven? times over!

_Someone tosses a tomato on stage._

EMCEE: Alright, alright, sheesh. Tough crowd. _(Mumbling)_ Who wrote these cue cards anyway? _(Loudly)_ Without further ado about nothing, I present to you the conclusion to all of the hard work our talented theatre department has put in the past couple of months — and I don’t just mean for the play.

_Lights dim over a collective sigh from five weary souls in particular. Curtain. Exit ALL._

_Lights up on YOOHYEON, arguably no longer quite an idiot, but still her wonderful, earnest, dramatic self._

“The most tragic of stories are ones of betrayal…”

There is a buzzing in her veins. It has little to do with the sip of the energy drink that Bora offered her just as the auditorium opened its doors to the long lines waiting outside, and everything to do with the way Sera had to choke back tears at the sight of them peeking around the curtains in awe at the sheer number of people waiting to see them, the way Siyeon stumbled through an emotional pep-talk and didn’t even bother trying to act tough with her friends and classmates gathered in her envisioned costumes around her, the way Minji held her hand for support up until they had to take their places and gave her a kiss on the cheek for good luck because clumsy Yoohyeon might actually do as told if she had said _break a leg_ instead.

_“I’m so nervous! I hope they like it!”_

_“You, Minji, actually get nervous? You never seem nervous at all!”_

_“I’m a good actor.”_

_“Well, can’t argue with that…”_

_“You are, too, Yoohyeon. I can’t wait for them to see you.”_

The spotlight is hot on her head, its accusing glow reflecting off of the silver of her hair and the sword under her hand. The narrators introduce the story. The main lights go up to reveal Jiu lying elevated on the ground at her feet — sans the gold glitter, but still with all of the harrowing beauty of a fallen angel. Gahyeon, attached by the backpack to what looks like a zip-line system stretching high above stage, flies back and forth dropping blue flowers around the scene.

As the narrators finish their opening lines and the last of the petals rain down around her, Yoohyeon tilts her chin the slightest bit up — a telling act of queenly defiance as she stares emptily into the dark blur of the audience, and an unscripted movement entirely for herself and the way her heart pounds in anxiousness, but also exhilaration.

She can’t wait for them to see her, either.

_“Leave not your sins behind, but all songs that once were ours.”_

_“As a crowtit should I sing, if upon a stork’s legs you shall break.”_

_“The present is never the time for petty grievances, Sua. Polaris is burning. Should I break apart from my station now…”_

_“Ah, noble Dami, removed from emotion and reality as has been thusly expected nigh ten years. Aye, Polaris burns. But when a kingdom and its heart both break, what’s a queen to a flame?”_

_“...And what’s a flame to a dragon?”_

Yoohyeon breaks character only three times during opening night, and even then only briefly. The first happens somewhere around the end of Scene One, when she inevitably trips over the folds of her royal court costume. Handong accosts her in the dressing room during a scene she has no part in to stick her with more pins and slap an extra layer of non-slip tape on the soles of her boots, and all goes surprisingly well for the remainder of the night. The second break in character occurs just before most of the court’s banishment from the kingdom, when Dami and Sua’s tense confrontation is supposed to lead into the shocking attack of the unpredicted combination of enemy forces — scores of extras were supposed to trample across stage united under the banner of a blood-red dragon, but Gahyeon swoops in with them in a fully functional, flying, fire-breathing dragon costume-slash-behemoth of a machine.

Yoohyeon’s jaw drops along with the audience’s. Handong and Yubin exchange a proud nod from the wings to the catwalk.

And the third goes unnoticed by all, because her reaction fits with her character. But when the climax comes, and it’s just the two of them speaking with the despair and desperation of lost love that refuses to be betrayed:

_“Yoohyeon…”_

_“Your Majesty… just as my heart betrays me, so have I betrayed you.”_

_“Why… why? Why do you call me by my title, as if I am nothing more than your queen?”_

_“Why do you call me by my name, as if I am nothing less than yours?”_

Yoohyeon slowly lifts her head. She knows what to expect — they’ve rehearsed this over and over, and Siyeon had even replaced the lines in her first draft to keep the ones they ad-libbed during auditions — yet nothing, still, can ever prepare her for the sadness in Minji’s face.

To the audience, who has fallen back from the edge of their seats with a collective gasp, they are still Yoohyeon and Jiu, and the stage is filled with such delicious, tragic tension that they are swept up in each slight breath and movement.

To Yoohyeon, the extra beats she remains frozen are not an artistic, dramatic pause. In this one moment she breaks character, and it is just Yoohyeon and Minji; only she is audience to the heartbreaking tremble in Minji’s lips and the unbidden glossiness of tears that Yoohyeon cannot wipe away for her.

The same thought from auditions flashes into her mind: she would do anything to make sure Minji never has to wear that look for real. This time, however, it stays there and cements deep into the corners of her memory. Because getting to know Minji, being allowed to see her real, unacted, intimate emotions and trusted to hold them in her clumsy hands — this is something Yoohyeon refuses to fumble. And yes, they are only somewhere in between acts two and three of their lives, but Yoohyeon is always honest with what she feels and right now her pounding heart tells her that she could dedicate all the rest of her acts to ensure that beautiful, glowing smile remains on Minji’s face.

This conviction is what keeps her heart pounding until the curtain closes, and it’s what carries her on a high through the impressed applause and chatter from the audience and the post-performance screaming rituals led by Bora.

“We did that! We effin’ did that! Babe, your story _did that!_ You’re _amazing!_ ”

“Oh, I know. But babe, _you_ were amazing, did you see the look on the audience’s faces when you shot blue fire at the guards?!”

“Did you see the look on Sera’s face? It’s about fifty-fifty if she’s more appalled by the dragon, or the fact that I willingly gave Bora a flamethrower.”

“Appalled? I was such a good dragon, though! I even did a barrel roll!”

“You were the _best_ dragon, Gahyeonie; the greatest costume I’ve ever designed…”

Yoohyeon doesn’t even have time to join her friends’ celebratory huddle before she is bombarded by everyone else. She finds herself at Minji’s side, both still in their respective tattered black and puffy pink dresses, as cast and crew and eventually audience members come up to congratulate them. To her surprise, it’s not just for Minji, the school’s renowned leading lady — they come up to laud her, Yoohyeon, with just as much praise. Classmates who have never talked to her before, students grades younger who give shy compliments; it all fills her with renewed confidence and determination to perform even better for the next showings, even as she flushes and awkwardly stutters through acceptance of such attention.

Throughout it all, through requests for selfies and hugs and even the odd autograph or two, Minji makes sure to keep at least their little fingers linked together.

_“You were great, Yoohyeon. I’m so proud of you.”_

The smallest of connections; the simplest of words. At the end of the night, as Yoohyeon lies awake with the adrenaline of the performance still in her veins and one of Minji’s hoodies tucking her into bed, she decides that these are the ones that mean the most.

//

_The next day’s matinee showing of Deja Vu. Saturday afternoon, because who does theatre in the morning? Four girls are gathered in a tight circle on the darkened auditorium stage. They are the first of the company to get to the school, at the urgent behest of SIYEON._

“Why are we here so early?” Yubin asks, first thing.

Siyeon flicks through her final script, meticulous notes added to nearly every page for revisions and suggestions to the cast and crew after the first official showing. Overkill, maybe, especially for someone who claims cool, emotional detachment from everything, but her friends wait patiently because they are familiar with her true personality, and love and support her passion.

That’s why they’re here, all of them, because throughout the chaotic years they have grown together and have learned how every individual operates, and how to build each other up so that they produce as much support as they do laughter. It is why they gathered here at the very beginning of their version of the story: they know Yoohyeon, and know that sometimes she just needs a friendly shove in order to get her to go for what she really wants.

“Didn’t we go through all the phases?” Bora tries to count the steps of the grand plan off on her fingers, and gets stuck trying to indicate Phase One-point-five. Yubin diplomatically looks the other way.

Siyeon flips a final page and finds what she is looking for. Triumphantly, she jabs a finger at a part she has highlighted, circled, and underlined in furious red marker. They peer in to look.

“The kiss scene? I thought they were very polite and discreet about it, unlike another certain couple I know,” Handong says offhandedly.

Her lofty tone goes straight over the impassioned scriptwriter’s head. “Exactly!” She tosses the script to the floor and crosses her arms, expectant.

Handong just blinks at her, unimpressed.

“...Babe, what do you mean?” Bora asks.

Yubin, childhood best friends with the girl she has reluctantly let out of stranger status, is the first to understand. “There’s nothing polite and discreet about Yoohyeon.”

“Nothing at all!” Siyeon goes in for a fist-bump, and smoothly transitions it into a slick-back of her hair as Yubin tactfully looks the other way again. “And that’s the thing! Unlike another couple — I have no idea who you could be referring to, by the way — Yoohyeon doesn’t even know if they’re an actual couple!”

“Of course they are,” the other three say with varying degrees of monotonous reluctance and bewildered offense.

“The whole school’s been talking about it! Three of my teammates were out of commission because they were sobbing about how Minji’s dating someone that’s not them!”

“Half of my art class’ final projects were fanart of Minji and Yoohyeon. Minji even signed some of them.”

“One plus one.”

Siyeon nods. “Yes, of course; my plan was foolproof and I never once doubted any of us to pull it off.” She is an only slightly better liar than her girlfriend. “But _Yoohyeon_ isn't sure, because… well, she’s Yoohyeon.”

The four flashback to the weeks leading up to opening night, and the discordance between Yoohyeon’s absurd doubts and the sickeningly romantic couple-y moments between her and Minji.

“...So you’re saying the stage kiss is lackluster, because…”

“Yoohyeon’s holding back the raw intensity of her feelings!”

“...Because she’s an idiot.”

Siyeon pounds the script with an emphatic fist as the others come to the same weird but technically logical conclusion as her. “In rehearsals it was just a cheek kiss and a giggle. Cute, sure. But this is an epic melodrama of love and betrayal! I didn’t write this to be ‘polite and discreet.’ We didn’t go through all of this for them _not_ to solidify the realization of their feelings through the symbolism of an acted-but-actual dramatic kiss! Where is the love? Where is the—”

Lights suddenly go up on stage. This time around they don’t panic and otherwise overreact, since they expect Gahyeon’s presence now. From around the curtains, enter:

Yoohyeon.

And there’s the betrayal, plain on her furious face.

“Aha! I can’t believe you!”

“What? You don’t believe me? There’s nothing you can prove! The hospital has no records of any patient named Hyunsuk on that day! Gahyeon made sure of — I mean, what? I don’t know any homophobe named Hyunsuk, ha ha…” Bora somersaults backwards, farther away from her. Siyeon tries to stop her from going too far, and they both tumble into the orchestra pit. Handong sighs.

“Not that!” Yoohyeon cries, fists at her sides. “I can’t believe you would go behind my back, orchestrating an entire plot of scheming, unnecessarily complex deception just to get me and Minji together!”

Bora’s disheveled head pokes up from over the edge of the stage. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Yubin cuts off Yoohyeon’s incumbent rant. “Is it really that unbelievable? I thought it was obvious. We’ve been trying to get you to confess to Minji for three years now. We literally created a role for you that pit you as her love interest, and then spent a month and a half quite blatantly trying to push you two together at every opportunity.”

“And are you really upset at the outcome?” Handong points out.

Yoohyeon pauses, tilts her head in thought: “Well, when you put it that way…”

“Love, who are you yelling at…? Oh, hi guys!” Minji enters, and the scene immediately switches from one of dark tension to one of casual softness. “I was unlocking the back doors for the rest of the crew and passed by Gahyeon on the way… she mentioned something about a meeting with the president running late, and that she’s on her way…?” Her hand automatically finds Yoohyeon’s, whose fists have unfurled and all traces of genuine irritation and pretend outrage vanished.

“Thanks Minji, you’re the best,” Siyeon’s disembodied voice weakly calls. Bora’s head disappears again to assist her recovery with completely unnecessary mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Yoohyeon facepalms in shame at her friends’ antics, but her wide smile gives away her exasperated fondness that she will always hold for her friends.

“No problem! See you guys in a bit, today’s going to be amazing too!” Minji tugs Yoohyeon away with a giggle and a kiss to the cheek, and the two of them head off backstage with their hands swinging lightly between them and gentle laughter trailing behind. And there, in the epic melodrama, is the love.

Yoohyeon’s friends watch them go.

Gahyeon rollerblades in a minute later, hastily rolling up the parachute that’s attached to the grab handle of her backpack. “What’d I miss? Are we set for Phase Four?” She smooths out her suit and plops down excitedly next to Handong.

The others exchange a look.

“I don’t think we’ll be needing any more phases,” Handong tells her.

“Yoohyeon’s fine,” says Yubin, gruff but proud.

Bora vaults back up on stage and flops happily onto the floor. “Mission Impossible: accomplished!”

“Wrong franchise,” Gahyeon sulks, upset once again that her services were not required, but her deflated slouch shoots back up as Handong affectionately adjusts her rumpled tie.

Siyeon takes the longer, safer way back up the steps, and stoops down center stage to scoop up her script. She stares at the urgent red markings for a moment as she reflects. In one blink, she watches the way Yoohyeon embarrassedly rubs at the back of her neck as she all-too-eagerly introduces herself as the girl who gave herself a concussion last week, and then as she sits perched under the spotlight, confidently gazing right back at a rapt audience.

In another blink, she watches her circle of friends develop in character too, the most chaotic drama and the most mundane time spent all leading them to this moment in which they draw the curtains on another act created together.

She rolls the script up, and tucks it into her back pocket. Of all the stories of memory and love, there isn't anything she would possibly change about this.

“On second thought, the only kisses I really care about are Bora’s.”

Her friends react exactly as expected. Their shouts and laughter rise from the stage out to an empty auditorium that will soon be filled with people, all come to share in their story.

“Now come on, we have a play to put on!”

//

Saturday afternoon’s performance is, as Minji predicted, amazing. Gahyeon is forced to procure a photocopy machine, just so that poor Shuhua in charge of the box office doesn’t constantly run out of tickets. Saturday night’s performance is even better. No one flubs a single line, and not a single smoke detector goes off, although that might be because an innocent techie might have deactivated them after Bora got a little too excited with the flamethrower that afternoon.

Sunday evening’s final performance?

In the words of the old adage: they saved the best for last.

In the words of Sera: pardon my French, children, but what the _fuck_ —

_“Halt! For conspiracy against the throne, Her Majesty has hereby banished you from the kingdom.”_

_“Leave now, if you know what’s good for you!”_

_“Oh, really, now?”_

Nearly burnt out from a whole weekend of back-to-back performances, and simultaneously fueled with manic energy by the fact that for many this is either the second to or very last production of their high school years, the entire cast and crew launched into tonight’s show with a united warcry and the fervid intent to give it their all.

Which means, among other things, dramatic narration that borders on operatic spoken word, dangerously unchoreographed and harder hitting sword-fights, and the biggest and hottest plumes of flames yet.

Bora sends Jae and Wonpil flying off into the audience with streaks of blue fire chasing their rears. They clamber up mostly unscathed due to Handong’s clever modacrylic/kevlar/asbestos-lined costume designs, and flash Bora grinning thumbs ups as she finishes her growling monologue with a flip and another burst of flames from her hands.

In the front row, Sera has her hands covering her face, and remains barely peeking through her fingers for the next three scenes.

In stark contrast, since she and Minji swapped their matching hoodies for their beginning costumes and took a quiet breath to themselves at their side-by-side vanities, Yoohyeon has not been able to stop _looking._

Minji is pretty. Everyone knows it, and this fact has only solidified in truth as the years have gone on. And it’s not like the costumes are any different, or the stage makeup any more or less intense tonight; in fact, their many outfits are slightly wrinkled from use by now and have definitely gone the show weekend unwashed, and the makeup does little to conceal the flush of exertion and the slight sheen of sweat from the heat of the lights and fire effects.

Minji is still incomparably beautiful. The audience swoons as she makes her entrance, and all eyes are glued to her throughout the play as she weaves emotion into the air with such entrancing movement and voice.

And maybe that’s it. Because Yoohyeon knows imperfection; at least, what she’s seen in the mirror and faltered under when she thought about stepping into the spotlight for the first time. Yoohyeon isn't perfect. Neither is Minji — no one is. But when she turned her doubtful scrutiny from her own reflection to where Minji stood at her side, already gazing back at her, she recognized the look of awe like she was still looking into the mirror — and she realized that imperfection, these insecurities and overdone thoughts, is just a placeholder for potential. And sometimes you just have to look to see what’s already there.

Minji taught her this. She taught Minji this, too. They took those steps individually yet side by side across this stage, and now here they are — and maybe _that’s_ why Yoohyeon can’t stop looking. Because whenever she does, Minji in all her etherealness is already, always looking back.

_“You know I would hear your every wish. I would grant you the world if it were mine to give.”_

Two queens kneeling before each other; two girls exchanging a small, private smile.

_“You have no audience just yet, just now, Your Highness.”_

_“Only you.”_

_“Always.”_

This final stage kiss is soft, chaste, quick — the lights slowly dim as they pull apart too soon for the script’s standards and simply let themselves look at each other. And with the way Minji does, with such fond, full, warmth shining bright in her eyes, it doesn’t matter if the audience is unsatisfied or if they are supposed to be playing a role or not.

Because Yoohyeon is Yoohyeon, and she has never felt more proud and happy to be herself.

So when it comes time for her monologue at the end of Act Two Scene Three, when it’s time for her to deliver the lines she has rehearsed to perfection over a month and a half of exhausting, determined practice, she glances over to the wings.

_“Your two eyes, their glow is lost… please erase all my memories. Far away through the dense fog, the far path I departed on only left hurtful marks. Even as I try to grasp the ends of the dream; eventually, longer and longer, I fall asleep in a deep silence…”_

Minji should be gone to change into her next costume, but there she stands, glowing with pride and awe and affection.

_“Oh now, holding this pain, like the day I abandoned everything… it grows more painful every day. Endlessly, in front of my eyes, deja vu.”_

And this sight alone is enough to pull her from under the prickling spotlight and the enraptured hush of the audience, to sweep her feet clear out from under her only to catch her and set her solidly back to her stage with a smile that makes her glow, too.

_“Deja vu, oh, deja vu…”_

She pauses for a beat longer than she should. Just before a castmate whispers the prompting of her next lines, Yoohyeon takes in a deep breath, and opens her mouth to speak. Out from it spills her heart, with lines utterly unrehearsed but not entirely improvised — like they’ve sat in the corner seat in the shadows just needing someone to tell them _it’s okay to be brave, to be seen;_ like they’ve been searching all along in subconscious memory for just the right audience; like they are words so familiar to her soul that they don’t need to be practiced, that she’ll have a lifetime of this shared stage to say them over and over in new ways and mean them every single time—

“ _...So I’ve fallen now._ And… Min—Jiu… if this were to be our reality; if our roles in this life were to be written by another hand, by another destiny…”

The other club members, listening backstage and up on the catwalk as their beloved play comes to its climax, freeze at the sudden change in script.

“No matter the perception, or the character, or the memories; no matter the changes in these, or the ending of our stories…”

The audience murmurs, also catching on to something amiss in the way Yoohyeon has turned completely to face the wings.

“...this heart would still be mine. And… it grows clearer everyday…”

She refers back to the ending lines of her monologue, but Minji waits breathlessly across stage for her conclusion. For the only epiphany that matters. For Yoohyeon.

“...that it would still, always, choose to fall for you.”

Never has Yoohyeon been more confident standing centre stage, alone under the spotlight and knowing her audience has heard her. She turns back to the rest of the auditorium, and finishes with shining eyes and a beautiful voice made exultant in emotion.

“Endlessly, in front of my eyes… deja vu.”

_Lights dim to black._

And when Minji still finds her hand in the dark, when she still searches for Yoohyeon’s eyes even as frazzled crew members pull them away to get ready for the next scene, Yoohyeon knows. She knows, when the very next scene she is faced with that look of heartbreak and it still cannot mask the undampenable glow of happiness underneath. She knows, when Minji trusts her yet again to catch her when she falls. And she knows, when they stand opposite each other in the last scene in what is supposed to be the final, tragic farewell, and their closing lines are anything but.

The script reads one thing; Minji and Yoohyeon tell an entirely different story.

YOOHYEON: All the truths I believed covered me in falsehoods.

_Like how Minji is a star, too bright and unattainable to ever meet her in the shadows; like how Yoohyeon just can’t be meant for the spotlight, no matter how much she wants to reach out to it._

MINJI: But oh, in the midst of the darkness, like a ray of light… you take my hand.

_Like a timid arm stretching out to help a stranger up. Like an unsteady grip on a pen so that she can create a space for her name. Like ever-present warmth just in the corners of blurred sight as she breathes out her first whispers._

YOOHYEON: And I follow you.

_How could they not? An endless dance of two spotlights fluttering across the stage and barely crossing paths, like two pairs of eyes dragged elsewhere but longing to meet._

MINJI: Even if I bet all of me for you, and the painful wounds deepen…

_“So if I’ve fallen, all of me for you, and this love only deepens…”_

YOOHYEON: As if every moment is a dream…

_The rapt audience notices the seamless change in JIU’s line moments later, but by now the ending is already destined to change._

MINJI: …I won’t move away from you.

_Instead of stepping backwards into the shadows, alone on opposite sides of the stage, they move towards each other in determined, tripping steps._

YOOHYEON: And now… I’m in my Deja V—

_The play’s final line is cut short, never quite bringing an end to the story, as Minji and Yoohyeon meet centre stage in a kiss — tasteful, but brimming with barely restrained passion — finally together under one brilliant, shared spotlight._

_The curtain falls to a standing ovation, but to the two lead characters only just beginning their story, the roar of the crowd around them goes unheard._

//

//

_The techie room. Two cloaked figures lounge around the loft, surveying the mural of names and scribbled tags along the walls. It’s a mess of color and overlapping designs, an unplanned collaboration of a hundred different students who have come and gone, each leaving their mark here._

NARRATOR #1: Improvisation without a script; no one’s written it.

_NARRATOR #2 runs a thumb along a complicated math equation cramped in one corner, a different handwriting attempting to solve it and the pencil marks cutting off halfway as the variables u, c, k, and f begin to line up._

NARRATOR #2: And now we have the chance to.

_NARRATOR #1 tugs a curled edge of a rug away to reveal a note next to it — “Gahyeon wins this one, sorry Yubin <3” — written in neat, pink gel pen. The blunt response — “it appears I’ve greatly miscalculated my affection for the both of you” — is tactfully covered by a smiley face sticker._

NARRATOR #1: But someday, we’ll be looking back.

_NARRATOR #2 looks to the other wall, where a long chain of messages runs along the perimeter of the ceiling. It begins with the bolded Sharpie of “siyeon wants to be bora’s gf sooo bad signed siyeon” followed by an even bolder “No, I do not. Signed, the real Siyeon.” and ultimately ends in “...be my gf? Signed, the real Siyeon.” “COSIGNED B*TCH — SIYEON’S GF”._

NARRATOR #2: Memories we’ll have; all the songs that we lived through. The best of times.

_Both figures solemnly turn to face each other._

NARRATOR #1: So why leave them behind?

NARRATOR #2: Why can’t the rest of my life be like my…

_In unison, they break out in the chorus of ‘High School Musical’ from the High School Musical 3: Senior Year soundtrack. Last semester’s Deja Vu costume hoods fall as they passionately complete their duet in a series of unnecessary vocal runs._

YERI: You know, I’m kind of sad that this is the seniors’ last play. Minji would’ve made a great Gabriella.

SOOYOUNG: But can you imagine Yoohyeon trying to lift her in the ‘Can I Have This Dance’ rooftop rain waltz scene?

YERI: Oof. Yeah, good thing we decided to wait ‘til next year. Best for last, right?

SOOYOUNG: Better not wait too long. One sapphic slow-burn saga of suffering is enough.

SERA, _calling from offstage_ : Act One beginners to the stage, please! And by that, I mean Yeri and Sooyoung. Quickly. Siyeon dear, I appreciate your zeal, but there is technically no ‘hearse’ in ‘dress rehearsal’...

_YERI and SOOYOUNG scramble to get down the loft ladder. In their haste, they knock into some of the randomly collected furnishings. Like deja vu, a plastic yellow kiddie chair tumbles onto its side, revealing a much shorter, simpler equation on the wall behind it:_

YH + MJ

_Surrounding them is a heart, and surrounding their heart is a plethora of past and present names, each one belonging to a story all too precious to ever be forgotten._

_Lights dim. Blackout._

_Curtain._

_End scene._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> endlessly, thank you so much for reading!!! stay safe and healthy, and remember: right now you're doing great!!
> 
> (feel free to throw some rotten tomatoes at me here, or at [curiouscat.qa/desperheaux](https://curiouscat.qa/desperheaux%20rel=) \-- oh, and stick around after the show for the curtain call!) c:


	8. Curtain Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _What a case am I in then, that am_   
>  _neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with_   
>  _you in the behalf of a good play!_

###### If you would turn to the back page of your directories...

  * Minji and Yoohyeon, by overwhelmingly popular demand, go on to star in the last play of their senior year together. Yoohyeon recruits her meddling friends to help with a promposal during the last showing. The result: a few broken walls, a case of poisoning, and an extremely cursed spider infestation. Minji says yes.
  

  * After the success of Deja Vu, Siyeon commits to switching her writing passion from music to film. Some of today’s most successful blockbuster franchises are based on her big brain screenplays, and she has directed many an indie film starring her high school enemy-to-lover Bora, who finally gave up on professional soccer after a record number of red cards to become a highly feared stunt double and sexy villain typecast. Siyeon still pretends she isn't the biggest softie ever. Bora is still extremely privy to dramatic homoerotic improv. They can’t be more proud of each other.
  

  * Right out of high school, Yubin quickly becomes a renowned art director for the Hollywood scene. She retires early after inventing a math theorem that leads to greater space exploration for humanity and billionaire status for herself. She allows Siyeon to direct a movie entitled _Young & Rich_, based on her life. By personal request, Bora does not star in it.
  

  * Handong goes on to become one of the most sought-after costume designers in the Broadway scene. After a few years, she launches her own fashion line, on par with the likes and brand value of Louis Vuiton, Chanel, and Blanc & Eclare. Yoohyeon is her first model.
  

  * Gahyeon graduates from university early and promptly disappears. She returns four years later with pink hair, a Nobel Peace Prize, and the reins of the largest underground crime syndicate in the world. To thank Handong for holding onto her backpack all this time, she drops from a helicopter in the middle of New York Fashion Week with shades in one hand and a glitter-glued invitation to coffee in the other. They promptly disappear for another four years, during which Yubin reveals they saved the world from an alien invasion, but that’s another story.
  

  * Yeri and Sooyoung finally put on High School Musical: The Play in their last semester. In a twist of fate, they are scouted by an entertainment company, and debut in the same kpop group called Scarlet Silk. Their suggestion of Wildcatz for their sub-unit name is swiftly denied.
  

  * Sera continues to be the emotional support teacher of at least six hundred more kids with the help of anonymous donations signed with a smiley face sticker. Up until the day she retires to become a Twitch streamer, no class ever comes close to being as chaotic as the year of Deja Vu.
  

  * As expected, Minji receives a full-ride scholarship to Juilliard, and goes on to win over the hearts of audiences worldwide in films such as _The Lost Tree of Language_ , _And There Was No One Left_ , and _I Miss You_. In their coincidentally shared projects, her presence on set is often the only thing that prevents Yubin from speed-dialing Siyeon to collect her wife. Unexpectedly, in the middle of her acting prime, the star announces an indefinite hiatus. When asked in an interview about the millions of hearts she has captured and broken, Minji smiles apologetically but with a sure brightness in her eyes barely hidden behind wire frames, and says: _“There’s only one heart I want to focus on right now.”_
  

  * Yoohyeon and her beautiful voice command the musical theatre scene for a few years before her sapphic self grows too angsty to survive long distance. In true Troy of _High School Musical 3_ and also just dramatic Yoohyeon fashion, she dashes off in the middle of a sold-out _Wicked_ performance that happens to be on their anniversary, hops on a flight to Minji’s filming location halfway across the world, shoves aside the bewildered actor playing her love interest, and kisses her — tastefully, but brimming with barely restrained passion — in the rain.
  

  * Courtesy of their friends’ not-so-secret meddling, it takes another concussion, another exorcism, and another three years for Yoohyeon to ask Minji to marry her. Minji says yes.
  

  * Fifteen years after their very first stage together, cuddled together in bed reading their first shared script since high school, Yoohyeon asks: _“Wait, so… just making sure… you like,_ like _me like me, right?”_
  

  * Yoohyeon remains an idiot even five years into pure, domestic bliss with the love of her life. Her wife simply smiles, takes off her reading glasses, and leans over to kiss her.
  

  * Minji says yes, again and always.



_The cast, chaotic and wonderful until the end, links their hands together for one final, sweeping bow. The lights dim as they rise._

_Curtain._

_End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Facts and other snippets that didn't make it into the final script:  
> \- badass, I'm-in-a-heavy-metal-band-and-punched-a-man-once siyeon burst into tears after jiyoo's final deja vu performance  
> \- if sera hadn't agreed to make jiu/yoohyeon improv together at auditions, minji's plan b was to beg her to make yoohyeon her understudy, and then coincidentally fall ill at showtime. she just genuinely wanted yoohyeon to take the chance to shine :c  
> \- gahyeon purposefully lost the mathlete speed-practice to yubin in act one scene one because she didn't want to make the 7 negative  
> \- there are more dreamcatcher lyric references in this than high school musical  
> \- "that's why her backpack is so big it's full of secrets"  
> \- _"encompassing, my heart thus understood / this shakespeare sonnet bad, minji smile good"_
> 
> I started writing this with only the summary snippet and this end credit 'where are they now' bit. once more, thank you so much for sticking with this unplanned hot mess of a story! we might not all be as disgustingly corny as jiyoo, but you are the star of your own stage -- thank you for letting me share, however briefly, in your act! c:


End file.
